


So Darkness I Became

by lucyoppa



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Body Worship, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Rimming, Slow Burn, fem!Junmyeon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 16:10:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucyoppa/pseuds/lucyoppa
Summary: Jongin comes back to Kyungsoo like Autumn turns the leaves colourful, like Winter blows in with chilly gusts of wind and snow. Inevitably.





	So Darkness I Became

**Author's Note:**

> _Prompt #13_
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>  **A/N:** This fic is based on the myth about Hades and his abduction of Persephone that I'm sure most of you know, although I've exercised quite a bit of creative freedom when it comes to certain aspects of the story. To the prompter... I realised about three quarters of the way through you were probably expecting something a little different to this, but it was too late to backtrack by then. So I hope you like it anyway? I certainly enjoyed writing it. I've been wanting to write a fic like this for ages.
> 
> A quick disclaimer: in no way do I think kidnapping someone because you ~love~ them is romantic, and nor do I think it should be taken lightly. But I _am_ retelling a myth about the Greek Gods, who were pretty wild, and a lot of stuff that was acceptable back then is considered shocking and awful now (nudity, for example, was pretty much par for the course between men. There's a scene in this fic where Kyungsoo is a whole lot less creepy than you might originally think, once you know that). If I were to accurately retell the myth, in fact, it would contain some triggery stuff like _so much_ incest, and most likely some non-con too. But I've tweaked all that out of because I wanted this fic to be enjoyable. I'm saying all this because I do _realise_ that this fic could get a little too close to romanticising stuff like abduction, and some slightly unhealthy power dynamics, and I don't want readers to think that _I_ think that's okay. It's just the best I can do without completely changing the original myth, and that's not the point of this fic.
> 
> Anyway, the title is taken from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfBY96qxVRQ), and this was the main song on my playlist for this fic. I hope all of you enjoy reading it!
> 
> PS: I'm really sorry Kris is kind of an asshole. Like I promise I actually like him. But someone had to do it.

 

 

Toes curl into warm soil, giggles alight into the air around him, and Jongin flops back into a soft bed of green grass and lavender with a long, heaved out sigh.

 

This day, like all others, is sunny and bright. Beside him, Joohyun, Seungwan, and Seulgi chatter softly over the flower crowns they are weaving. A little ways off, Sooyoung and Yerim dabble in the edge of a stream together, laughter as light and tinkling as the water itself.

 

Jongin lifts his hands and parts his fingers, squinting through the gaps between them to stare up into a blue, endless sky. The branches of a tree enter stage left of his peripheral vision, hung with ripe, fat figs ready to be eaten. His skin feels warm, honeyed – like someone has drizzled him in golden sunlight – and Jongin feels so, so alive.

 

The clearing in which they play is a patchwork of colour – filled with the primary greens of the trees and grass, and of the bright red poppies and yellow lemons. They are interspersed with delicate, purpling orchids, dripping from their stems, and the Lilies blooming, softer and shyer, near the water and shade.

 

And Jongin can feel the energy, can feel all the brightness and the _life_ of this clearing, thrumming right under his skin. Every breath he takes tastes as fresh as dewy grass at dawn, and everything is just as it should be.

 

Everything is _beautiful_ too.

 

But for all its splendour, the one pair of eyes that watches – from somewhere far beyond – is not focussed on the clearing. They are focussed on the beautiful boy with the golden limbs, and the flowers tucked into his hair like they blossomed through his skin and grew there too.

 

A soft, dissonant breeze passes through the clearing just then, and Jongin lifts his head away from the grass to check the direction from which it came. Because with it comes the sweetest floral smell – something more exquisite than from any flower he has ever seen – and he finds himself entranced.

 

Standing, he only makes it three steps towards the forest before he’s called back with a chorus of water splashing against rocks.

 

“Where are you going?” calls Seulgi.

 

“Your mother will be worried if you wander off,” warns Joohyun.

 

“Stay and make wreaths with us,” says Seungwan.

 

Jongin turns back to the water nymphs and smiles at their antics. The three of them look up, all beautiful wonderment and expectation – Sooyoung and Yerim have tumbled off too far down the stream to see what is going on anymore.

 

“I’m just going a little way off to see something,” he assures them, and they sigh like waves washing up against calm shores. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

 

With the nymphs appeased, Jongin heads between the trees at the edge of the clearing, in search of the source of the fragrance from earlier. As he moves further into the wood, the vegetation becomes more overgrown and undisturbed, and with the way he concentrates on picking his way around the undergrowth and parting tree branches so they don’t scratch at his face, he loses track of just how far he must have travelled.

 

It isn’t too far – not far enough that he’d get lost. But far enough that he can no longer see the sunlight from the clearing where he left the Oceanids and their pretty flowers looped around prettier fingers. Ahead of him, watery sunlight from another, less open clearing pulls him closer, and he forgets about Joohyun’s warning.

 

Whatever the source of the scent is, it must be here. He can sense how close it is, feel the life of whatever flower blooms there, and he steps carefully, gingerly, into an untouched clearing, where it looks like no one – no man or god – has set foot in many years.

 

And there, right in the centre, buds the yellow-tinged, creamy petals of a narcissus. So lovely that Jongin gasps aloud, and takes just a moment to marvel at its beauty from a distance.

 

Perhaps if he were in his right mind, he would come to the conclusion that no flower this beautiful, big, or perfect could be naturally occurring. Jongin himself – a bringer of life and greenery – has never seen anything so splendid in his own presence before, and so there is no way possible for the flower to have been created without divine intervention.

 

But as it stands, something about how it sits, near-sparkling, in a beautiful glade of trees makes him careless. Perhaps the perfume has drugged him, addled his brain and rendered him stupid, because Jongin does not think twice about walking closer to touch the soft petals, breathing in and luxuriating in the scented air.

 

It is just as he is wondering if he could bear to pick such a treasure to bring back to the water nymphs, or whether that would be cruel and heartless, when he hears a thundering crack so loud that his ears ring. Jongin whips his head round in alarm to find the source of the noise, but it seems to be coming from beneath his very feet as the ground starts shaking.

 

Alarmed, he turns from the clearing to run back to his friends and make sure they are safe – to find his mother and figure out what is going on – but in his panic, he loses his sense of direction and forgets which way to go. Just then there is another loud crack, and another – and Jongin spins around to find the very earth beginning to break a part, a large gash appearing in the soil as the fabric of the earth’s mantle seems to shift to give way to a massive, deep fissure in the ground.

 

Frightened, he turns heel to run in any direction he can – anything he can do to stop from being swallowed up into the black, bottomless abyss he saw in that pit. In his confusion and terror, he registers one thing – the sound of horse hooves. It grows louder for some reason, and then louder still until it seems to be right behind him.

 

He is about to turn around to see what’s happening now, when a vice grip wraps around his bicep, and pulls him clean off of his feet and up into the air. His world spins. He can’t see. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

 

His body hits something hard, and moving. It feels wooden, but he doesn’t know why. The horse hooves are deafening now, he thinks he hears a snort. Whatever’s happening he’s moving so fast there are bits of tree branch and leaves falling on top of him, making him screw his eyes shut.

 

A deep voice says something indistinguishable near him, and he tries to look up to make out who it is.

 

The last thing he sees before he blacks out is a pair of dark, bottomless eyes staring down at him.

 

Jongin screams.

 

And then there is nothing.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

“Where is he?!” Junmyeon cries, her voice stricken with desperation. “Where is my son?!”

 

The Oceanids huddle together, frightened, and shake their heads. They point in the direction of the dark forest and babble nonsensically, their voices the sound of water crashing against jagged stones.

 

Night has fallen, and Jongin has not returned.

 

“Didn’t you see what happened?” Junmyeon demands, trying in vain to raise something useful from the shaken nymphs. They simply shudder as one, shaking their heads more vehemently and pointing, more insistently, towards the tree line.

 

She makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, tearing a hand through her long blonde hair in anxiety. A moment later, she whips a dark cloak out of thin air, and ties it around her shoulders. A torch appears in her right hand, and she looks towards the Oceanids with determination.

 

“I will look for him,” she claims, with fiery conviction. Her torch lights itself. “I am _going_ to find him.”

 

The water nymphs whisper encouragements with the sound of a rushing river. To Junmyeon, it is a tiny comfort as she turns from them with a heavy heart, and sets off on her quest.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Deep down in the darkness of the underworld, Jongin sleeps.

 

Even in the dim gloominess of the room where he lies, he is still golden, glowing with a faint light that spills onto the soft sheets around him, and illuminates his sleeping features. Dark lashes rest upon slightly flushed cheeks – he has been fitful and feverish for a while now. He tosses and turns, and it makes the flowers still caught in his hair scatter onto the bed to form a halo of pink and yellow petals around his face.

 

And beside the bed, another figure sits upon a low, ornate stool, and watches every movement.

 

He watches the slow rise and fall of Jongin’s chest under his robes, the slight furrow that flickers over his brows every now and again. He listens attentively to every tiny whimper, every little noise of complaint that pushes past those full lips. The other figure doesn’t make a sound, nor does he make any move to wake the sleeping boy, but simply watches. Watches as if in his own personal rapture.

 

But Jongin has been asleep for a long while now. And it’s time, it seems, for him to wake of his own accord.

 

The frown deepens for just a moment before he opens his eyes. Jongin wakes with a sharp intake of breath, and his eyes flicker about the ceiling in confusion.

 

“You’re awake,” says his bedside companion. The deep, muted voice startles Jongin, and he scrambles to sit up and back himself into the headboard. It makes the last of the flowers fall from his hair, landing on the pillows, and getting caught on his robes.

 

The stranger bends down to pick up one of the petals that has fluttered down onto the floor. Jongin watches with wide, afraid eyes as it withers between his fingertips, turns to ashes, and the man sighs resignedly in the back of his throat.

 

“Who are you?” Jongin demands, and his voice shakes. “Where is this place?”

 

He doesn’t remember much about being taken, but Jongin realises, with a sick lurch of his stomach, that he has been kidnapped. The man – his captor? – stands, and it frightens him.

 

But all he does is bow. Deeply and respectfully, before he says: “I am Kyungsoo, God of the Underworld.”

 

The name sends a shiver down Jongin’s spine.

 

“The underworld?” he exclaims, beginning to panic. “I’m in the _underworld?_ ”

 

Kyungsoo nods, and watches him with dark eyes.

 

Jongin stares back, transfixed and caught, for a moment, by their swirling depths. He’s heard of Kyungsoo before, of course. How could he not have?

 

Kyungsoo of the Underworld, one of the three most powerful Gods. Rivalled only in authority and dominion by Minseok of the Seas, and his own father – Yifan of the Skies.

 

Jongin trembles in his presence. “Why am I here?” he asks.

 

In person, Kyungsoo cuts a less fearsome figure than all the tales of him suggest. There is no fire sparking in his eyes, no impassioned anger about him. Instead, he has a calm, pallorous beauty to his features – pale skin contrasting with dark hair and darker eyes. Something about him is cold and earthy – his lips are luxurious, his jaw sharp, and his movements serene and measured.

 

And Jongin is no less scared by this reality than the stories he had known before.

 

Kyungsoo speaks then, the quiet richness of his voice washing through the room. “I am in need of a partner – a lover. I have chosen you to be my consort.”

 

It takes just a moment for the true meaning of the words to sink in, but when they do, Jongin gasps, quick, short, and shocked. His features twist quickly from fear to anger.

 

“Never,” he snarls, his hands gathering into fists in the sheets beside him, and his shoulders squaring with tension. “How _dare_ you –”

 

Upon the quick shift in Jongin’s mood, Kyungsoo takes a step forward, and reaches out a placating hand. “You are upset –”

 

“Don’t touch me!” Jongin shrieks, interrupting him and tumbling off of the opposite side of the bed, just to have something in between him and Kyungsoo. He stands quickly, and faces the other man. “Don’t you _dare_ touch me!”

 

Kyungsoo drops his hand, and sighs. He lowers his eyes.

 

  
“Is that how you think this works?”  Jongin questions, furiously. “That you can just kidnap someone, and force them into marrying you? I won’t have any part of it. Return me to the human world at once!”

 

Kyungsoo looks back up. “I can’t do that,” he says.

 

Jongin runs an exasperated hand through golden hair. “Why _not_?” he snaps. “Do you want for there to be a war? Because that is exactly what will happen when my father finds out you’ve taken me against my will.”

 

Kyungsoo is quiet for a long moment, and the sound of Jongin’s heavy, frenzied breathing fills the room.

 

“Your father…” he says, at length, glancing upwards to the ceiling, as if towards the God of the Skies himself. “Has given his permission and blessing for our wedding to take place.”

 

Jongin goes cold. “What?” he asks, faintly, and all of the colour drains from his face.

 

“I went to him to ask personally.” Kyungsoo confirms. Jongin’s body sags back against the wall.

 

“He must not have asked my mother,” Jongin frets, more to himself than to Kyungsoo. “There’s no way she would have allowed for this to happen.”

 

A sense of dread begins to pool in the bottom of Jongin’s stomach. If it is indeed true that his father had consented to this, then yes, Kyungsoo is, by custom, justified in his actions. But would he do such a thing? Would Yifan, God of the Skies, really give away one of his sons to an admirer he hadn’t even met yet?

 

 _Yes,_ Jongin thinks to himself wryly. His father has been absent and aloof since the day he was born. Palming him off to the first suitor to ask would be _very_ like him. It’s his _mother_ who cares, and it’s his mother who’s probably out there now, worried sick and looking for him.

 

Without realising it, he has begun to hyperventilate. One fat tear rolls down his face, and then another, and Jongin begins to sob.

 

Will he ever see his mother again? The water nymphs? His friends? Will he ever see the light of day and the bright sun and fields and flowers and everything that he cares about once more?

 

“I’ve upset you,” Kyungsoo says. Jongin looks up through teary eyes to see a temperate frown lining the other man’s face. “I’ll take my leave now.”

 

Kyungsoo bows again before he turns and walks to the door. He glances back once, over his shoulder, to look at Jongin, then pushes through, and closes it behind him.

 

Jongin’s body caves down onto the bed. He didn’t hear a lock click behind his abductor, but then this is the underworld. There’s no use in trying to find an escape, because he already knows that there isn’t one.

 

Alone, he finally gets a moment to clear his head, and consider the situation in its entirety.

 

Then he puts his head in his hands, and cries.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Junmyeon is beginning to weary.

 

Her search has been relentless. She has checked every nook and cranny of the earth and sea where her son could possibly have disappeared to, and still, no sign of Jongin.

 

As she trudges through the woods – the same woods where Jongin was last seen – for what must be the fifteenth time, she comes across a clear, shimmering pool of water. She stops. She hasn’t eaten or drunk since her search began, and it is starting to take a toll on her body.

 

Still, she refuses. Not until she has found her son. Not until she has found her Jongin.

 

But Junmyeon has already looked _everywhere_ in the mortal world, and the only conclusion now is that someone must have taken him. Alone with her sadness and agony, she begins to cry.

 

“Someone help me,” she implores, and even though her voice is soft, she knows the Gods must hear her. “Anyone. Please!”

 

She drops to her knees in anguish, and tries one last time.

 

“Does anyone know what happened to my son?” she begs.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jongin sleeps after he cries. Eventually, the exhaustion – both mental and physical – overcomes his body, and he drifts off, curled in on himself, and with one arm hanging off the edge of the bed.

 

He wakes much later. Or at least he _thinks_ so – Jongin has no gauge of time down here in the underworld. The bedroom where he sleeps has no windows, and even if it did, there is no sun to tell the passing of time, to divide the days from the nights, the mornings from the afternoons.

 

But his eyes are sticky with sleep when he looks up to the sound of the door opening – an intrusion that had woken him in the first place. And his body feels heavy and languid, as if he had been under for a very long time.

 

Kyungsoo stands in the doorway for a moment, before he comes in, holding a platter in both hands. As if giving Jongin the time to acknowledge his presence before he intrudes.

 

Jongin chooses rudeness instead. He sits up and draws in on himself – legs to chest, arms around his shins – as Kyungsoo closes the door behind him and steps up to the side of the bed. He watches from under the knit of a frown as Kyungsoo bows yet again, and sets the platter down on the edge of the silken sheets.

 

“You should eat,” Kyungsoo says, as he sits down on the same stool from before. “You must be feeling weak by this stage.”

 

Jongin looks down at the offering before him when the scent of ambrosia rises in his nostrils. The dish is beautiful, covered in intricate patterns, and paired with a gleaming chalice of rosy nectar. It is more extravagantly presented than any meal Jongin has ever eaten, and he guesses these are the luxuries saved for only the most important of the Gods.

 

It should be an honour, he supposes.

 

He knows too that this cannot be standard for Kyungsoo – that the God of the Underworld himself must not be the one who waits on guests. That role is meant for other, more lowly beings, and Kyungsoo should technically not be doing this, should not be bowing down to _Jongin_ of all people, and serving another person so far beneath him in rank.

 

Jongin understands then, that it is an act of courtship. That he is meant to be flattered, and swept off of his feet by the actions.

 

But it only ends up insulting him more that Kyungsoo thinks it is that easy. Acts of chivalry and pretty things will never make up for the fact that he has been ripped away from his home and his mother, and everything he cares about.

 

“You haven’t had any food or drink since your arrival,” Kyungsoo persists with a note of worry in his voice, when Jongin turns resolutely away. “Please Jongin. Eat.”

 

Jongin does not budge, but his stomach is a traitor. It growls loudly in the silent room, and his mouth waters when the heavenly aroma almost proves too much for him to resist.

 

Kyungsoo is right. It _has_ been a long time since he last ate. His last meal was with his mother, that morning before he visited the water nymphs. She had been warm and caring when she caressed him goodbye, and suddenly, the impossibility of the distance between them hits him again, in a sickening wave.

 

But thoughts of his mother bring him back, too, to a warning she always used to tell him as a child. _If you ever, for whatever reason, find yourself in the underworld, Jongin,_ she had said, as he played on  her lap, _never eat the food there. It will bind you forever._

“Jongin –” Kyungsoo goes to speak again, but Jongin turns around in a fury in that moment, having finally realised what the other is trying to do.

 

It is with a clatter, and then a crash, that the platter and the chalice fall to the floor, when Jongin overturns them. The platter cracks down the middle, and the chalice bounces once, leaving behind a puddle of spilt nectar to soak into the carpet.

 

Kyungsoo stands, still surprisingly composed. Jongin glares up at him defiantly, as if daring him for punishment.

 

“You’ll _never_ bind me here,” he spits.

 

Jongin knows that if this were his father’s kingdom, the consequences for acting out like this would be severe. But he isn’t about to play by Kyungsoo’s rules – not when he asked for none of this in the first place. And besides, he’s more than ready to have Kyungsoo drop the tranquil façade, for him to show his true colours as the cruel ruler who took an innocent person hostage against his will.

 

But Kyungsoo vexes him even further by staying perfectly level headed.

 

“I’ve upset you again,” he says with his signature bow. “I’m sorry.”

 

He turns to the door, and leaves without another word.

 

Jongin stares after him, pushing his hands into his hair to grab fistfuls of it and pull. It aggravates him to no end, that he cannot even raise the simplest of reactions from the other man, even with his worst behaviour.

 

And now, alone, he’s left to sink once more into his despair.

 

Jongin has no idea what he’s going to do.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Junmyeon.”

 

The sound of a gentle, feminine voice calling her name is what makes Junmyeon lift her tear-stricken face. None of the Gods have heeded her call for help, and she is upon the verge of giving up all hope.

 

“You must drink,” says the stranger – a beautiful woman with long, dark hair, and a severe face. Junmyeon can tell from her height and her beauty and the unearthly glow emanating from her body that she is no mortal – but if she is a goddess, she is one with which Junmyeon is yet to be acquainted.

 

“I have no time for that,” Junmyeon pushes her arms away when the woman attempts to guide her towards the pool, exasperated. “I have to find my son!”

 

“And I can help you,” she soothes, when Junmyeon’s voice edges itself into panic. “But you’re catatonic! You have to drink first.”

 

With those words, Junmyeon allows herself to be led to the water. Her body sags with relief – she doesn’t know this stranger, or if she can trust her yet, but at this point, any information is better than what she already knows.

 

“Who are you?” she asks, when she has drunk her fill. The woman’s head is encircled by a shining silver wreath. Her robes seem to glow in the darkness around them, as if absorbing the very moonlight. Junmyeon isn’t sure how she had any doubt that this creature was anything less than a goddess, but perhaps the dehydration and panic _were_ starting to have some kind of effect on her brain.

 

“I am Soojung,” she says now. “Goddess of many things: witchcraft, necromancy, and the moon. But that is not important for the time being – I was nearby when Jongin, your son, was taken.”

 

“So he _was_ taken!” Junmyeon exclaims, horrified. “And you saw who did this? Oh, tell me who!”

 

“No, no, I did not see,” Soojung is quick to shush her. “But I was close enough to hear him scream. He was definitely abducted by someone – in this very forest, in fact.”

 

Junmyeon’s body crumples. “But that doesn’t help me at all!” she wails, the crushing of her hope almost too much to bear. “I already _knew_ that.”

 

“Hush, hush,” Soojung comforts, taking the weeping mother into her arms. “It’s okay. I know someone else who was watching that day, someone who will have seen the whole thing.”

 

Junmyeon draws back to look at her. “You do?”

 

“Yes,” says Soojung. “I’ll take you there.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It doesn’t take Jongin very long to become listless and bored, left alone as he is, with his thoughts, in the bedroom where Kyungsoo has decided to keep him.

 

The immediateness of his panic has subsided, and there isn’t much for him to do but huddle under the bedcovers. The underworld is so much colder than anything he is used to, and his own thin robes do nothing to keep him warm – not down here, so far away from the heat of the sun, and all the greenery of the day that Jongin loves so much.

 

He wraps one of the many blankets laid out for him around his shoulders, and gets up now, to examine the rest of the room. Jongin knows that the door isn’t locked, that he is free to leave and explore if he chooses, but in his earlier hysteria, he hadn’t noticed quite how splendid his immediate surroundings were, and Jongin is intrigued.

 

Besides, he doesn’t want to risk coming across Kyungsoo, and having to face his presence once again. For the time being, he just wants to be left alone.

 

The polished surface of a bronze mirror is what first attracts his attention. Larger than any Jongin has ever seen before – spanning the entire height of the wall, from floor to ceiling, and facing the bed itself. The surface is cold when he presses the pads of his fingers to it, looks into the dark circles and puffy eyes of his own reflection, and wonders why he, of all people, is here.

 

All of this finery is to be expected, of course. Jongin can be nowhere other than The Palace of the Underworld itself – Kyungsoo’s home – and the highest of the Gods are never ones to deny themselves any of the comforts.

 

He moves, next, to the large chest, gilded in gold and with ivory handles, pushed into a corner. It is so big and grand that he has to use two hands to pull it open, and see what is inside. In it, lies a pile of fresh, folded robes, presumably for Jongin’s use.

 

He spends some time poking through the contents, and taking out each garment to lay it flat on the bed for examination. These robes are all thicker and warmer, more suited to the icy climate, he supposes, than his own. The fabrics are richer and more luxurious too, all deeper in colour, and all with more opulent trims.

 

 _These are the clothes fit for Gods,_ he thinks, as he carefully puts each of them back, and shuts the chest again with a sigh.

 

It’s very beautiful, the room. Kyungsoo must have been trying very hard to impress him with the choice – even Jongin, in all of his reluctance, has to admit that. But still, it’s nowhere he’d want to stay and spend his time – unless it wasn’t by force, and he was free to come and go as he chose.

 

And so Jongin makes the choice to remain resolutely unimpressed by Kyungsoo’s gifts and flatteries.

 

The real extravagances, however, are kept on a low table, near the bed. A row of delicate, hand-crafted bottles lines the wall, holding an array of oils and exotic perfumes. He recognises the sweetness of lilies, the soft powderiness of roses, and the spiciness of cinnamon. As he lifts the lids off of each in turn, their combined bouquet rises in a heady mixture, making Jongin wrinkle his nose, and cover them back up quickly to make it stop.

 

In front of them, a large bowl bears a collection of some of the finest jewellery Jongin has ever laid eyes upon. Rings, and diadems, and bands for his arms and thighs all glint under the lamp-light. The warmth of gold contrasts with pearls and gems of every colour: the reds and oranges of carnelian, the deep greens of emerald, and the lightest, milkiest blues of chalcedony.

 

It is just as he is inspecting one, particularly spectacular ring, inlaid with aquamarine, when the door opens yet again, and Jongin looks up from his spot, sitting on the edge of the bed, expecting Kyungsoo.

 

The man in the doorway, however, is a stranger.

 

He bows – he’s much taller than Kyungsoo, with a set of serious eyebrows, and longer, dark hair that flops into an attractive, slightly off-centre part. His robes are of the darkest black, and his eyes flicker with an otherworldly red light.

 

“I am Sehun,” he announces, before coming into the room. Jongin drops the ring he is holding back into the bowl and crosses his arms when he sees that Sehun is holding a similar platter of ambrosia to the one Kyungsoo brought him earlier, and in his hand, is a fresh chalice of sweet-smelling nectar.

 

“Did he send you here to force-feed me?” Jongin asks bitterly, drawing in on himself as Sehun comes closer. It’s not something he would put above his captor at all, forcing him to be bound here like this. And he wouldn’t be surprised, too, if Kyungsoo had a servant do the dirty work.

 

“Kyungsoo? No,” says Sehun, as he sets the platter down on the foot of the bed, and takes a seat on the stool, much like Kyungsoo had, hours before. “You aren’t to be forced to do anything, Jongin. He only sent me to try and convince you to eat because his presence dismayed you so much last time.”

 

Jongin scoffs.

 

“I’m not to be forced to do anything? Except to spend every day for the rest of my immortal life trapped down here with him,” Jongin shoots back, rolling his eyes. “Forgive me if I don’t see how your decency makes my situation any better. You can take the food away, Sehun. I won’t have any of it.”

 

Sehun persists. “You will weaken if you don’t eat.”

 

Jongin knows it’s true. His powers will gradually subside, until he cannot control them anymore, and he’ll stop being as physically strong as he once was. But, when it really comes down to it, Jongin is a God. And Gods don’t need food in order to survive.

 

“But I won’t be bound,” he says with certainty. “If there’s any chance that someone could come and rescue me from this prison, I won’t seal it away now.”

 

Sehun sighs, resigned.

 

“As you please,” he says, with another small bow of the head. “But you have had a long journey. If you don’t wish to eat, can I at least show you to the palace baths to freshen up?”

 

Jongin _does_ feel rather grimy, wearing the same robes as he had on as when he was kidnapped. Again, he cannot tell the time down here, but he’d guess it has been at least a full day and night since he last bathed himself properly, up in one of the shimmering streams of the human world.

 

“P-please,” Jongin stammers, unused to the polite tone. It’s been a while since he’s actually _agreed_ with someone, of late.

 

Sehun gathers up a fresh set of robes, and some of the oils and perfumes for Jongin to use during his bathing before he leads him out of the room for the very first time. Jongin takes in the sights around him with wide eyes as Sehun shepherds him towards the baths – he simply cannot help it. Despite his deep-seated displeasure at the overall situation, The Palace of the Underworld is stunning, all high, domed ceilings, massive white columns, and shining marble floors.

 

The baths, too, are a sight to behold when they finally get there. The opaque blue water stretches out before them, long enough and wide enough to seat a hundred people at once, with murky steam rising up and obscuring the many archways around the room that lead to other parts of the palace. Jongin feels the shivers that had plagued him the entire way there subside with the sudden warm humidity, and he sighs in relief.

 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sehun says, as Jongin drops his robes. He sets down the items he brought along with him next to edge of the bath, bows once more, and then disappears from the room.

 

The first toe he dips into the water has Jongin gasping, as it is hotter than expected. Or maybe that’s just because his body seems to have forgotten what warmth feels like – either way, he has to ease himself slowly and carefully into the water, until he sits neck deep, with his head resting back against the marble lip around the edge of the bath.

 

Jongin sighs quietly to himself as he starts to feel each muscle relax and loosen up. He didn’t realise quite how tense he was until now, with the hot water beginning to work its magic on his body.

 

But it’s to be expected, he supposes. Being kidnapped by an unfamiliar God who intends to force you into marriage is hardly the most calming of experiences.

 

Everything around him is still, and quiet, and for just this moment, he feels at ease. Jongin knows it is only a temporary relief, that the mess of his situation is nothing that hot steam and olive oil can fix. But he’ll take any small happiness he can get at this point.

 

He simply lies like that, with his eyes closed, for a long time. But when he opens them again, to examine the vividly painted fresco on the ceiling above him, a small movement, and a tiny noise like a footstep in the otherwise hushed room rouse his attention – and suspicion.

 

Jongin has to peer through all of the steam, across the full length of the bath to see a dark figure hovering in one of the archways, and then hesitantly coming into the room. When he steps further into the light, Jongin sees that it is Kyungsoo, busying himself with undoing his own robe, and preparing to join him in the water.

 

Jongin’s entire body stiffens.

 

In one swift movement, he is out of the water himself. His robe is tied sloppily over wet skin, and he doesn’t waste time with the oil or perfume before he leaves.

 

He doesn’t look back, either, when he sweeps out the room to retrace his steps with Sehun, all the way back to his bedroom.

 

It annoys him to no end that Kyungsoo is foolish enough to believe things are this simple.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Jongdae.”

 

Junmyeon is half-blinded by the time Soojung comes to a stop, the supportive arm wrapped around her shoulder the only thing that tells her she should halt too. The light shining in her eyes seems to shift at the sound of Soojung’s voice, and Junmyeon raises her hand to shield her face a bit, and squint from between her fingers.

 

“Strange to see you out in the day, Soojung.” a voice replies, and Junmyeon sees now that the light is shining from a person – a God. Jongdae, the Sun God, she guesses from both the name, and his appearance. Junmyeon has heard of him before, but they have never met until now.

 

“I’ve come to ask for important information,” Soojung presses, ignoring the hint of humour in Jongdae’s voice, and the mischievous tilt of his mouth. Junmyeon’s eyes begin to adjust somewhat, and she can see now that Jongdae has the brightest golden hair, and glittering high cheekbones. “Junmyeon’s son – Jongin – was taken by someone while playing in the fields of Nysa. You look down from the sky, and watch the earth all day. Surely you must have seen it happen?”

 

Jongdae’s smile drops in the next moment, his face turning to seriousness. He hesitates – and Junmyeon catches it.

 

“Please,” she begs, on the verge of dropping to her knees for the dazzling God before her. “If you know who took him, _please_ tell me.”

 

Jongdae sighs, and drops his eyes. “It was Kyungsoo,” he concedes. “Kyungsoo of the Underworld is the one that took your son.”

 

A fiery rage bubbles up within Junmyeon upon hearing the truth, and she chokes on a sob, thinking of Jongin, all alone and scared in the dark coldness of the underworld. She turns to Soojung in a frenzy, and grasps her by the shoulders.

 

“We must gather the other Gods,” she says, with fierce determination. “Jongin has been taken to the underworld without my permission and against his will. It is a theft – a grave offence against Olympus. Something must be done, but I can’t act on my own.”

 

Soojung nods, and murmurs soft words to calm the delirious mother. “We will go, in a moment. I’ll take you there. But stop and compose yourself first. You’re in no state to present this case to your fellow Olympians.

 

“You cannot do that,” Jongdae interrupts. “Because Kyungsoo has committed no crime.”

 

Junmyeon and Soojung turn as one to look at him, and await further explanation.

 

“I’m truly sorry, Junmyeon, that your son has been taken,” he continues, bowing his head out of respect. “But while Kyungsoo may have taken her, Yifan is actually the one responsible for this.”

 

Junmyeon’s blood runs cold at the mention of her past lover. “What do you mean?” she demands.

 

“He came to Yifan, Kyungsoo did.” Jongdae turns away, unable to watch the goddess’s distress any longer. “He asked for permission. It is law that a father must consent for a marriage to take place. You know that, Junmyeon. And Yifan gave Kyungsoo his blessing.”

 

Junmyeon’s eyes widen painfully, as she stares at Jongdae’s back. “No,” she whispers. “No!”

 

It _can’t_ be true.

 

Realisation hits her with a harrowing blow, and this time, her legs give out, and she _does_ drop to her knees. It’s an aching sight, to watch so strong of a goddess fall to pieces, her agonizing cries loud, and ringing out across the skies.

 

Not a soul in all of Olympus could possibly be spared the sounds of Junmyeon’s bitter anger and grief.

 

And if there is one thing she knows, it’s that Yifan has heard her too.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next time Jongin wakes, his room has been cleaned. No more spilled ambrosia on the floor, and the stained carpet is gone, replaced with another.

 

The knowledge that someone has been in the room while he was sleeping feels invasive, but then he doubts it was actually Kyungsoo. Sehun maybe, but the job of cleaning up almost certainly does not fall upon the ruler of the underworld himself. He wonders if there are servants to run the palace, and realises that for all the stories he has been told, he does not know. He hasn’t heard any voices near his room, and neither did he see anyone other than Sehun and Kyungsoo during his brief excursion out to the baths.

 

Jongin half expects Kyungsoo to come in again and beg him to eat, but hours pass and he gets tired of toying with the jewellery and perfumes on the side table, left perfectly alone. This, paired with the fact that he doesn’t know a single thing about his new home – though he is loath to call it that – are what have him timidly stepping out of his room by himself, with the intention of exploring the grounds.

 

And so, in the splendour of the palace, Jongin wanders. He turns right first, the opposite way to which Sehun had taken him, and then left, and then so many more different directions that he almost worries he'll get lost and won't find his way back.

 

His hand trails across the cold, rough surface of the walls as he sticks close to them. His heart beats nervously in his chest, although it doesn't really have any reason to. Kyungsoo hadn't locked the door or told him to stay put. There's no real reason he should be expected to stay.

 

The ceilings are high. The archways wide and magnificent. Everywhere he looks are more stunning paintings, and exquisite sculptures. By every new thing he discovers, Jongin finds himself so absolutely taken.

 

And yet still, the entire palace is deathly quiet. He hears nothing, and comes across no one.

 

Presently, Jongin finds himself in the main throne room. So massive that he feels absolutely _dwarfed_ by the great hall's size. And the pièce de résistance of the entire palace – two elegant thrones, cushioned and gilded, sitting at the head of the room – catch his attention more than anything he has already seen.

 

 _I guess Kyungsoo wants me to take a place at one of those,_ he thinks to himself, resentfully, before he moves on.

 

The throne room has two great doors at one end, left open, and looking like they lead outside. Jongin hesitates for a moment, unsure of what the outdoors constitutes in the underworld. But curiosity gets the better of him – he walks to one of them, and cautiously peers out.

 

Outside is a garden. Or at least… what looks like it _should_ be a garden. All of the greenery is faded and withered, and the sight fills Jongin with such a profound sense of longing for home that his eyes start to sting with unshed tears.

 

He steps out onto the terrace then. The sky is so dark a shade of grey it is nearly black, and looks thicker, and more impenetrable than any cloud cover he has ever seen. It could be night time, but Jongin doesn’t know, and he guesses the torch-light illuminating the garden is a permanent fixture, that they aren’t put out during the day.

 

The babble of water sounds in his ears as Jongin drifts down the stairs, and through the wilted plants. Stepping past the first row of short, twisted trees bring him to its source – a large fountain, right in the middle of the scene. Jongin goes up to it, and sits down on the edge, peering down into the dark water.

 

He imagines the garden must be rather stunning when in full bloom, if it ever was. The architecture and design of it is as beautiful as the rest of the palace, with tall columns for vines to creep up, and many large pots and vases for flowers to spill from. If only something was growing, Jongin thinks that maybe, this entire palace wouldn’t feel quite so lonely and desolate to him.

 

He closes his eyes, and feels the weak pulse of life from all around him. The plants aren’t dead yet – simply neglected. But it will take a lot to revive them, and so, he closes his eyes in concentration.

 

Jongin breathes in and out, and drops into a deep, calm, meditative state. And with every fibre of his being, he wills the plants to grow.

 

He stays there, like that, for a long time, as he waits for his powers to work their magic. Much longer than he normally would – but then he hasn’t eaten in days, so it’s to be expected that he has already started to weaken. But when he does finally open his eyes, it’s to a completely different scene.

 

There are sprouts of fresh grass growing from between the tiles beneath his feet, and the vines have come alive and coiled themselves around the base of each pillar. Some of them drip with young, unripe green grapes, and the trees too, are bearing some kind of fruit along with their pale new leaves. Pomegranates? Jongin can only guess, he isn’t used to the plant life here.

 

Many flowers too, have started to grow again. Jongin can see red peeking out of furled poppy-buds, the glittering black berries of belladonna, and the soft creaminess of moonflowers. A strange selection. All somewhat bewitching and narcotic. He sits and marvels, for a moment, but then cannot help himself, and gets up to touch.

 

It will take a lot more for the garden to reach its full grandeur, Jongin knows. And with his fading powers, he’ll probably have to care for it manually and by hand, if he wants results. But who knows how long Kyungsoo will keep him trapped here? And in the meantime, while he holds out hope for rescue, he has no better way with which to pass his time.

 

It is just as he is running a hand lightly across the rough branches of one pomegranate tree, checking the fruit for ripeness and the plant for overall health, when Jongin sees him. Up on the terrace, lingering within one of the huge doorframes, Kyungsoo stands, watching him. They make eye contact, and even from this distance, Jongin is, for just a brief moment, fixed in place by the vastness of that gaze.

 

He realises himself, and recoils, visibly disgusted. Jongin turns his back, resolutely, and returns to sitting on the fountain.

 

Jongin doesn’t want Kyungsoo to think even for one tiny moment, that he is enjoying himself in this dark abyss.

 

Kyungsoo approaches, and Jongin can hear each footstep ring out, loud over the tinkling of the water fixture. He can tell the exact moment Kyungsoo reaches him and, if he were polite, the exact moment he should turn around and bow in greeting too. But Jongin does not. He simply sits, and waits for Kyungsoo to make the first move, and silently prays for him to go away.

 

“I like what you’ve done with the garden, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says softly. His name rolls so very smoothly from his mouth that even Jongin can’t help noting it. But he stays firm, and does not answer, so after a moment Kyungsoo tries again. “I see you’ve been exploring. Are you enjoying the palace?”

 

 _That_ earns him a response. Jongin scoffs and says: “It is as enjoyable as a prison could be.”

 

Kyungsoo sighs, and even though Jongin does not turn to check, he can feel him take a seat next to him on the edge of the fountain. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that every muscle in Jongin’s body draws tight, and he stiffens.

 

“I want you to be happy here Jongin,” he says. “If there is something you want, if there is absolutely _anything_ you desire, let me know. It will be yours.”

 

Jongin grits his teeth. “I want to go home.”

 

“…Except that,” Kyungsoo says with another sigh, and Jongin almost laughs, but it isn’t funny.

 

He twists then, to face the other man, a fresh anger bubbling up within him. “Tell me one thing,” he bites. “Why _me_?”

 

When Kyungsoo does not answer immediately, and merely watches him with a pensive expression, Jongin continues.

 

“You’re the ruler of the underworld, Kyungsoo. There must be at least fifty other Gods who would _beg_ for your hand in marriage. And you could just about take your pick from the human world, every one of them wants to be immortalised.” Jongin stops here, and pauses to catch his breath. “So why me? Why someone unwilling, that you’ve never met, and wants nothing to do with you? Why _me,_ Kyungsoo?”

 

Kyungsoo watches him for a long moment, and chews on his lip. Jongin thinks he isn’t going to answer again, but then he speaks.

 

“I am in love with you.”

 

All of the outrage drains from Jongin’s body at once, and his face grows pale. Part of him wants to take the sudden confession as some kind of joke, but the soft, almost shaky tone of Kyungsoo’s voice, and the unusual pinkness of his cheeks tell Jongin that he is being absolutely serious. He feels faint.

 

“What?” he only just manages to breathe.

 

“I am in love with you Jongin,” Kyungsoo repeats, with a little more strength in his voice. There is an intense earnestness to his eyes. “I don’t want to marry anyone else. It is true, I’ve had a lot of suitors in the past. But if it isn’t your hand I get to take in marriage, then I don’t want it.”

 

“But,” Jongin says, and he stands abruptly. His head swims. “We don’t _know_ each other. How can you _love_ me?”

 

Kyungsoo stands too now, in concern. He takes a step forward, and Jongin a step back. He stops.

 

“You forget that I can look into the human world where you live,” Kyungsoo says. He smiles, just slightly, as if remembering something. “I first saw you about a year ago. Little by little, I watched you. Every day. And I became… fond.”

 

He reaches forward and takes the other’s hand. Jongin is so shocked still that he lets him, and makes no move to pull back. Kyungsoo’s skin is cold, and he caresses Jongin’s knuckles with a thumb so tenderly, like his hand is the most precious, precious thing.

 

“In that time, I saw all your laughter and your playfulness. I saw how bright you are. How caring. And how beautiful. Jongin – your skin, your lips.” Here he pauses, and traces his eyes down Jongin’s figure. “Your collarbones, your legs. You are the most… perfect being I have ever laid eyes upon. I could not help but want you for myself.”

 

When Kyungsoo finishes, Jongin lets out a shaky breath. His cheeks feel hot.

 

It’s not every day that the God of the Underworld confesses that he’s deeply in love with you, after all.

 

But Jongin remembers himself, and snatches his hand back. “I,” he chokes, the word getting stuck in his throat. He has to drop his eyes away from the fervency of Kyungsoo’s. “I reject your affections.”

 

When he looks up again, Kyungsoo’s face is painted with so much dejection that Jongin can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed. But he can’t bear to stay and have this conversation any longer.

 

“I must go,” he says, and pushes past Kyungsoo to make a break for the palace.

 

Behind him, Kyungsoo does not follow.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Yifan,” Junmyeon growls. “You had no right. _No right,_ do you hear me?”

 

Everything in her posture screams aggression. She looks three seconds from ripping someone’s throat out, and if Yifan were even a slightly lesser God, he might have the decency to be intimidated. But as it stands, he rests an elbow on the arm of his throne, and a cheek on his palm, and looks down at her with nothing but boredom.

 

“I am Jongin’s father,” he says. “I had every right.”

 

“Without consulting _me_?” she snaps. “You haven’t seen Jongin since he was a baby. What makes you think you know a single thing about what’s good for him?”

 

“Junmyeon,” he sighs impatiently. “You know the law. Mothers have no place in deciding who their children marry. Kyungsoo will make a good husband, you can rest assured.”

 

Junmyeon stares back, incredulously.

 

“I can _rest assured?_ ” she spits. “With _you_ making the decisions? Does my say on the matter really mean that little to you?”

 

Yifan passes a hand over his face, as if tired.

 

“Jongin is to marry one of the strongest of all the Gods,” is all he says. “This marriage will bring him immense power. You should be happy with my choice.”

 

Junmyeon opens her mouth to retaliate, and then closes it. She stares up at Yifan, impassive on his throne, and purses her lips. She runs a hand through her hair in exasperation, grits her teeth, and comes to a decision.

 

“Fine then,” she nods, no less fiercely than before. “If my opinion matters that little to you, then I guess you don’t need me on Olympus anymore.”

 

Yifan blinks once. “Junmyeon. What do you mean?”

 

She turns, and throws him an airy, unimpressed look over her shoulder. “Goodbye Yifan. You won’t see me for a while. Or ever, possibly.”

 

Yifan stands, but she is already walking away. “Where are you going?”

 

“Remember,” she calls, as she tightens her cloak forcefully around her shoulders. “If you wish to talk to me, don’t try to do so until you’ve brought back my son. Or I won’t listen.”

 

He calls her back one last time, but she ignores him, so he sits down, disgruntled. Really, it’s not much of a threat, but something doesn’t sit right in his stomach. For the rest of the day, he tries to talk some sense into himself, and settle the feeling of disquiet in his mind.

 

He pretty much manages too. By night-time, all thoughts of Junmyeon with her perfect face and long blonde hair are erased from his thoughts.

 

Because really. How much harm could the Harvest Goddess actually do?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In the wake of Kyungsoo’s unexpected confession, Jongin spends the next two days holed up in his room, lost in thought.

 

He was so… caught off guard by the whole thing. Sure, he expected Kyungsoo to feel some kind of desire for him, but he thought it would be more superficial. It’s no secret that Jongin is almost unsurpassably beautiful, even for a God. He’s had so many suitors before that his mother had to move him from Olympus to the human world to get away from them all. So he’d expected his abduction was for him to be some kind of trophy, some keepsake, some pretty plaything for a powerful God that already had it all, and wanted a new toy.

 

What he _didn’t_ expect was unwavering eye contact and sincere devotion to a level he’s never seen before, as that same God bore his heart to him.

 

It makes Jongin’s stance on the whole thing waver somewhat. It shouldn’t – love still isn’t a reason to kidnap a person and take them away from what they love. But he can’t help it. Kyungsoo had looked so crestfallen, and Jongin is far too forgiving for his own good.

 

He still isn’t entirely convinced though. A heartfelt confession isn’t enough to make him swoon, and fall into Kyungsoo’s awaiting arms. He’s just… a little more conflicted than he ever thought he would be about this.

 

On the third day, he leaves his room again. Not because his mind is any more clear on the issue than it was before, but because he’s starting to feel grubby again, and needs to bathe.

 

After his bath, he decides to go and visit the garden, to check if the plants are doing any better. And indeed they are – the grapes and pomegranates are fatter and riper than before, and some of the flowers are fully bloomed. But the ground in which they grow is parched, and Jongin sets his concentration once more to pouring life and energy into the earth around him.

 

He can feel that in the last few days, his power has weakened dramatically further. With a final, forceful burst of energy, he unfurls all of the flowers, sends the vines creeping further up their columns, and ripens the fruit to fullness. And with that, he knows his abilities are depleted.

 

Later, as he plays in the edge of the fountain, dipping his fingertips into the cold, clear water, he notices someone watching him again. He turns, and it’s Kyungsoo, standing in that same spot – in the doorway, on the terrace – as he did last time.

 

Jongin expects him to come over too, like he did then. But he’s come to realise that maybe he shouldn’t have any expectations when it comes to Kyungsoo, because he just stays where he is, and continues to watch him.

 

His eyes are full, deep, and adoring. And Jongin, inexplicably, finds himself blushing.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Another week passes, and Jongin reconciles himself with the fact that if rescue is to come, it won’t be soon. Sehun offers him food a few more times in the passing days, but despite how much his body craves for it, Jongin refuses, and the attempts stop altogether. Kyungsoo does not approach him at all.

 

He learns from Sehun that the palace has no servants after all. That the halls he wanders, day by day, are as empty as they feel, and the garden he cares for had no one before him to look after it.

 

He learns too, that Sehun is no mere servant either. That by night he rests in the palace, and during the day, he leaves to row the souls of the dead across the river Acheron, and deliver them for judgement.

 

“May I come with you?” Jongin asks one day, hurrying after his long strides down the hallway as Sehun fastens a dark cloak around his shoulders, in preparation to go out. At the words, he stops and turns to regard him. “Just for today?”

 

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” comes the measured reply. “The world beyond this palace is not a pleasant one, Jongin.”

 

Jongin frowns. “If I _am_ to stay here forever, then surely I should know what that truly entails?” He says, with a reluctant sigh. “So unless Kyungsoo has forbidden it, then yes, I’m sure I want to go with you.”

 

Sehun looks at him for a long moment.

 

“Kyungsoo would allow you anything you wish as long as you remain in the underworld, Jongin.” He turns again, and jerks his head in an indication for Jongin to follow. “So come then. There are souls waiting.”

 

The walk to the Acheron is a relatively long one, and Jongin begins to regret coming along when he starts to shiver violently. The temperature drops steadily the further they venture from the palace, and the sky turns from grey to black. Sehun has brought a torch along with them to light their way – but if it weren’t for that, Jongin doubts he’d be able to see his own hand held up in front of his face.

 

By the time they reach the river, Sehun’s cloak is draped around his shoulders in an attempt to warm him up. They walk wordlessly along the bank for a while, until they reach a long, elegant canoe, pushed up onto the land. Jongin gets in, and holds the torch for Sehun as he pushes them off, takes his place at the helm, and dips his paddle into the water to row them across.

 

The water is slow moving, and inky black. It looks thick and caustic, gleaming under the torch-light. Jongin reaches out with one hand, to touch, but is quickly reprimanded by Sehun.

 

“Don’t touch,” his voice is sharp, and Jongin pulls his hand back, alarmed. “The Acheron is the river of pain. Touching the water will bring you unimaginable agony, Jongin.”

 

Jongin eyes the water cautiously, and draws closer in on himself.

 

The further they sail, the closer the darkness presses. It feels humid and obtrusive, like it’s trying to smother the torch light and plunge them into nothingness. Jongin cowers, and wrings his hands. The rising sense of dread within him distracts him so much he almost misses when the front of the boat bumps gently into something, and they run ashore.

 

“Here they are,” says Sehun, and takes the torch from him. Jongin becomes aware of a dull, low murmuring at the same time as the light falls upon a set of grey, human faces, illuminating what he guesses are the souls of the dead. They are expressionless, with vacant, unseeing eyes. Jongin shudders at the sight of them.

 

As if in a trance, they move as one to form a line in front of Sehun. The first one – an elderly man – opens his mouth wide, and reaches under his tongue to produce a single gold coin, that he places in the palm of Sehun’s hand. Jongin watches uneasily as he climbs into the canoe, and takes a seat across from him.

 

“Hello,” he says shyly, as the man stares blankly ahead at him. He doesn’t make any sound or move to acknowledge the greeting, and Jongin shifts uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze.

 

“The dead aren’t responsive like that, Jongin,” Sehun tells him, as he takes another coin from the next person in line. “He can’t hear you.”

 

“Oh,” Jongin says weakly, and tries his best not to be disturbed as a woman covered in blood takes her seat beside him. Frozen at the time of death, he guesses. He does know a little about the dying process, but he never thought it would be this… grim.

 

The third person in the line tries to get on the boat without giving Sehun a coin. He holds out an arm to bar him from stepping forward and says: “No coin, no passage.”

 

The soul drops his shoulders, and turns away.

 

“What does that mean?” Jongin asks, with wide, curious eyes. “Why doesn’t he have a coin?”

 

“It means he hasn’t yet been buried properly in the human world,” Sehun says, as the takes the next coin. “Something is holding him there. It’s too soon to pass on.”

 

“But that’s not his fault!” Jongin protests. “How can you hold a soul responsible for something they can’t do themselves?”

 

Sehun shoots him a vexed look. “It is the rules,” is all he says, and Jongin shuts his mouth.

 

When the boat is full, Sehun pushes them off of the bank once more, and sets them sailing downstream. It is just as the edge of the river has disappeared from the reach of the torch light, that Jongin hears an inhuman hissing sound, and then a bloodcurdling scream, from somewhere on the shore where they just fetched the souls.

 

“What was that?” he asks, frightened, and straining his eyes into the darkness to see if he can make out the monster that must have made the noise. But he can see nothing, and it scares him even more to not know what could be coming.

 

“Oh, it’s just the Erinyes,” says Sehun, looking off into the darkness as he rows. “They take out the vengeance of the living upon those souls who have committed unforgivable atrocities during their lifetimes.”

 

He hears the sound again, but this time quieter, and Jongin tries to calm himself with the knowledge that whatever they are, the Erinyes are growing steadily further away from him. They row on, for a while, in silence, with the quiet, expressionless dead packed tight around them.

 

Jongin _definitely_ regrets coming now.

 

“So,” he says, at length. “ _This_ is the world in which Kyungsoo wants me to stay.”

 

Sehun sighs. “If it were his choice, you’d have never left the palace. He wants to shelter you from all this. But he told me I was not to deny you anything, so even if this isn’t for your own good, I had to take you.”

 

Jongin frowns. “What good is sheltering me if I’m being forced to stay anyway?”

 

“Kyungsoo would never force you to do anything.”

 

He’s said those words before, many times, and Jongin is starting to get tired of them. “Except spend my entire life with him,” he rolls his eyes.

 

The hull of the boat makes contact with the land now, and as soon as they come to a halt, the souls all get up, and push past him onto the shore. Their touches are light and insubstantial. It feels more like a short burst of chilled air than any human skin Jongin has ever felt. After alighting upon the land, they all head off in the same direction, as if knowing where to go.

 

He expects Sehun to get out and secure the boat, but a moment passes and the other doesn’t move. Jongin looks up to find himself being stared down, the set of Sehun’s brows impatient.

 

“Just how lowly do you think of Kyungsoo, Jongin?” Sehun asks, and he sounds irritated. “He’s the God of the Underworld, for crying out loud. If he really intended to force you to marry him, he’d have done it already.”

 

Jongin opens his mouth to retaliate. “He –”

 

But Sehun cuts him off. “Let me make this clear: if Kyungsoo wanted to, he could bathe you in the river Lethe, and have you forget all about your mother and your friends and your entire life in the human world. You would know nothing but this place, and you would know nothing but _him_. He could make you do that, if he pleased.”

 

Jongin is shocked to silence by the outburst. Sehun is not to be stopped.

 

“But he would never. He would never do anything to hurt you, and he would never lay a hand on you that you did not want.” Here he stops, and strides past Jongin, off of the boat, with eyes blazing. “He’s _in love_ with you, don’t you understand? If he lets you leave this realm, you’ll run away never to be seen again, and it would crush him.”

 

Jongin stares after Sehun in dismay. “I – I,” he stammers, but Sehun isn’t having any of it.

 

“Come on now,” he says, urging him off the boat too. “I’ve already kept you out here too long, he’ll be worried.”

 

Jongin falls quiet, and allows himself to be ushered onto the land, and begin their long walk back to the palace. But perhaps because of how cooped up he has been of late, his body is quick to grow fatigued, not used to the exercise. Or maybe it’s just the fear and anxiety, an unavoidable effect of the underworld on his psyche, that has him nearly catatonic by the time they reach the front archways.

 

He is just vaguely aware of Sehun’s arms snaking around him when he falls, of his feet leaving the ground when someone picks him up. Another voice, too, frantic, and coming closer, says: “You took him out with you?”

 

The chest he is pressed against rumbles in reply. “He asked to come.”

 

“Alright. Fine. Bring him inside.”

 

He slips in and out of consciousness as he is carried to his bedroom, and set down in the softness of his blankets. The same foreign, deep voice speaks again.

 

“You can go now.”

 

Alone now, with this other individual, Jongin finds one last reserve of strength to flutter his eyes open, and look up into the depths of a pair of eyes. _Kyungsoo,_ he thinks, before his own slip closed again. He feels something cold press to his forehead, and then caress his cheek.

 

“Sleep Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, softly, tenderly.

 

Jongin manages one last little sigh, and then he does.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It might be another week, it might be two – Jongin has lost track of time again – before he approaches Kyungsoo himself, to talk.

 

The lead up to it is simple: Jongin gets bored. He finally runs out of palace to explore – he’s already stumbled upon Kyungsoo’s quarters, awkwardly, while he was in there, so he knows where to find him. And his garden is blooming and beautiful, with the plants all thriving and the fruit ready to be eaten, though he won’t. There just isn’t much else left for him to do.

 

And besides, Sehun’s words have stuck with him despite how much he tries to forget. _You’ll run away never to be seen again, and it would crush him._ Kyungsoo’s concern, when he fainted, has stuck too.

 

He can’t help but feel an interest in the God spark and grow within him. He isn’t admitting defeat just yet, but he _is_ admitting curiosity.

 

That alone can’t stop his nerves from almost overcoming him, however, and forcing him to turn around, as he hovers, indecisively, just outside of Kyungsoo’s door. He knows that he’s in there, can hear a pen scratching over parchment loudly in the quiet building. So before he gets cold feet, he steels himself and knocks, peeking timidly round the half-open door.

 

Kyungsoo’s pen stops moving over the piece of parchment in front of him, and he carefully lays it down before he looks up from the desk. His eyes widen.

 

“Jongin,” he says in surprise, standing. “Do you need anything? Are you okay?”

 

Jongin comes fully into the room. “No,” he shakes his head a little, and clasps his hands, fidgety. His eyes dart everywhere except for Kyungsoo’s face. “No, I’m fine.”

 

Kyungsoo shifts in his stance. “Then… what can I do for you?” he asks, in bemusement.

 

Jongin takes a long look around the room, and nibbles on his lower lip – anything for an excuse to avoid eye contact. This is awkward.

 

Kyungsoo’s bedroom is nothing short of humongous. The bed behind the desk is big enough to fit five of him comfortably, and everything – every piece of furniture and every glittering ornament – sparkles with gold accents over royal blue. It’s much fancier even than his own room, but Jongin guesses that’s only to be expected for such an important God.

 

“I was just wondering,” he says, at length, when he finds it in himself to meet eyes with Kyungsoo once again. “What you were doing?”

 

Kyungsoo needs a long moment to process that. But when he does, the corners of his mouth twitch as if he’s trying not to smile, and Jongin wills himself not to blush.

 

“I’m, uhh, reviewing today’s judgements,” he speaks softly, and for the first time since Jongin has met him, a tiny bit hesitantly too. “You can come and look, if you want?”

 

He raises his eyebrows expectantly, and also maybe a little hopefully, when he gestures to the parchment on the desk, and turns it around so it’s readable from Jongin’s end. Jongin has to take a deep breath to calm himself before he takes the first step, and goes to stand across from Kyungsoo, with the wooden surface in between them.

 

He looks down at the lines of script even though they bear no meaning to him, if for a moment, just to pretend that Kyungsoo’s eyes aren’t all over his face. With one finger, he reaches out to trace underneath the first sentence.

 

The room is absolutely silent, and the air between them feels charged, as he quietly examines the neatly written words.

 

“…I can’t read it,” he admits a moment later, his cheeks fuming when he looks up.

 

Kyungsoo chuckles, and it breaks the building tension. The sound is deep and rich and rumbling, and Jongin can’t help but look up, can’t help but be swept away when the other man’s lips curl to show all of his teeth, his eyes scrunching up into little half-moon crescents.

 

He recovers quickly though, and his face turns to schooled-back amusement. But for a moment there, Jongin had watched the formidable and respected God of the Underworld change from regal and commandeering to soft, friendly, and exuberant.

 

Kyungsoo reaches for his hand then. He falters, for just a split second, as if thinking it a bad idea. But he does it anyway, the coolness of his palm closing over the back of Jongin’s, and guiding his fingertip to the top of the page.

 

“Minos… Rhadamanthus… Aeacus…” he reads off slowly, pressing the pad of Jongin’s finger into each word as he goes. “Those are the judges of the Underworld. This is their report for the day.”

 

Jongin’s breath stutters at the skin contact, and Kyungsoo looks up at mirthfully from under his eyelashes. He lets him go.

 

“Oh,” Jongin says softly, trying not to be too affected. Honestly, he doesn’t know _why,_ but his eyelashes flutter, and his throat bobs, and Kyungsoo seems to catch the movement. He stares at him for a few seconds, with parted lips, absolutely fascinated.

 

“I can teach you sometime, if you’d like,” he says after a moment, clearing his throat and distracting himself by looking down at his desk, and turning the parchment back to face him. “To read, that is.”

 

Jongin toys with the idea. His mother never taught him how, never cared for academic pursuits during his childhood. She was always far more interested in keeping him isolated from the other Gods, when he still lived on Olympus, than any kind of education. It might be nice.

 

But letting Kyungsoo in on that might seem a little too much like giving in to his advances.

 

“You’re assuming I’ll be here that long,” he shoots back, going for a non-answer instead.

 

Kyungsoo’s eyes widen momentarily before he catches the playful tone of Jongin’s voice. Then he does smile – soft, and a little secretive.

 

“I… have some questions,” Jongin says slowly, changing the subject. “About the underworld, and how things work here. Are you too busy?”

 

He begins to fidget again as Kyungsoo fixes him in place with another long stare. So complex. Jongin can’t _begin_ to fathom what’s going on behind those eyes.

 

“I always have time for you,” he says eventually, with a little too much sincerity for Jongin’s stomach not to swoop in response. Kyungsoo stands, and fetches another stool from the corner of the room for Jongin to sit on.

 

He supposes, again, that he should be grateful. Such a high-status God, waiting on him hand and foot. What would his father say, if he knew how rudely Jongin had already treated Kyungsoo, the God of the Underworld?

 

“Thank you,” he mumbles, his cheeks heating up as Kyungsoo sits down once more. Upon hearing the words, Kyungsoo doesn’t comment, but he does look somewhat pleased.

 

“So,” he starts, clasping his hands on the desk in front of him, and watching Jongin intently. “What would you like to know?”

 

Jongin takes a deep breath.

 

“Sehun told me,” he says, biting his lip. This might not be the best of ideas. “That those who aren’t buried properly in the human world don’t get taken to judgement. But how is that fair, if it isn’t their fault? The dead can’t bury themselves.”

 

His heartrate speeds up as soon as the words are out, and he considers the question he just asked. Jongin has no idea how far Kyungsoo’s patience extends, even when it comes to _him_ , and Kyungsoo might take questioning his authority like this offensive. He knows that if this were his father, the query would be met with outrage. And getting into a fight with the God of the Underworld in his own domain would be one of the more foolish things Jongin’s ever done.

 

But –

 

“I agree with you,” Kyungsoo says, after mulling it over.

 

“What?” Jongin shakes his head a little, confused. “Then why…?”

 

Kyungsoo sighs. “What happens in the human world is not entirely up to me, even if it _is_ sometimes related to what happens down here – that realm is divided into three between me, Minseok, and your father. If they outvote me on something, I have to play by their rules, and since burial still happens in the human world, I’m afraid they did just that.”

 

Jongin nods slowly, processing this. So maybe… he and Kyungsoo might see eye to eye more than originally thought.

 

He was still kidnapped though. That thought lingers at the back of his mind no matter what, and isn’t quite that easily forgotten.

 

“Tell me about judgement then,” he says, glancing down at the parchment in front of Kyungsoo. “After the souls are judged, where do they go?”

 

Kyungsoo leans back in his chair, his robes falling back to expose attractively toned arms, as he lifts them behind his head. Jongin hates how he notices.

 

“The Asphodel Meadows,” he says. “Well… most of them anyway.”

 

“The Asphodel Meadows?”

 

Kyungsoo hums. “It’s where people who haven’t done anything particularly good or bad with their lives are sent. Most souls tend to fall into that category, unfortunately.”

 

“What’s it like?”

 

“Boring mostly. But not _un_ pleasant. It’s covered in flowers, which is very nice, but other than that there isn’t much to do.”

 

Jongin grimaces at the thought of spending all of eternity in boredom, but he supposes it’s fair. The underworld exists, of course, as a measure of control as to how humans live their lives, while they still have the time. He understands that not all of it can be pleasant.

 

“What about the… _not_ normal ones? Where do they end up?”

 

“The good ones either go to Elysium, or are reborn. Their choice. If they make Elysium three times, they can spend eternity in the Isles of the Blessed.”

 

Jongin puts one elbow on the desk, and rests his cheek on his palm.

 

“And what are _those_ like?”

 

“Elysium is… wonderful. It’s peaceful and calming, and even though the dead don’t need much entertainment there’s always music playing.” Kyungsoo pauses. “But the Isles of the Blessed are paradise. Very, very few souls actually make it there.”

 

Jongin smiles at the wistful tone in his voice. “And what about the… bad people?” he asks, a little apprehensively.

 

“It takes a lot,” Kyungsoo says, his face hardening almost immediately. “But if someone has been truly evil in their lifetime, we send them to Tartarus.”

 

Jongin cocks his head to the side, eyebrows furrowing. “Tartarus?”

 

“Tartarus is… an abyss. So deep even _I’ve_ never been to its true depths.” Kyungsoo’s frown deepens. “There is a river of fire that flows from the underworld, and drops down a steep waterfall to the bottom of it. Tartarus is a truly awful place, Jongin. You could never imagine it. I’d never _want_ you to imagine it.”

 

Jongin bites his lip at the hint of protectiveness in the words. He doesn’t quite know how he feels about that yet, but the fact that he _doesn’t_ outright hate it should be warning enough.

 

“Am I missing anything?” he asks bashfully, when Kyungsoo leans forward to put his arms on the desk too, and suddenly Jongin realises how close they are, how he’s been watching the other man with rapt attention this whole while. For what feels like the millionth time during their conversation, he blushes.

 

But he doesn’t pull back. Doing that would only tell Kyungsoo he has the ability to fluster him, and Jongin doesn’t think he could bear that.

 

“The Mourning Fields,” says Kyungsoo.

 

“The Mourning Fields?” he repeats.

 

“The Mourning Fields,” Kyungsoo continues, watching Jongin closely. “Are where we send people who’ve wasted their lives on unrequited love.”

 

Jongin frowns.

 

“But people can’t help who they fall in love with,” he says indignantly, lifting his head and placing both hands on the desk. “How can you punish a person for loving someone who doesn’t love them back? No one would _choose_ that.”

 

Kyungsoo looks at him for a long moment. Something in his gaze is pointed.

 

“No one would choose that, you’re right.” He watches Jongin intently, and Jongin flushes with realisation. “But they _can_ choose what they do about it.”

 

Jongin just stops for a moment, and considers that.

 

“So you’re saying,” he enunciates carefully, not breaking eye contact with Kyungsoo even for a second. “That if one falls for someone who doesn’t love them back, they should learn to let them go and move on, and not waste their time?”

 

Kyungsoo is quiet for a moment.

 

“Or,” he says, reaching forward, and placing his hand on top of one of Jongin’s. His voice has dropped. “They should try their hardest and stop at nothing to win that person’s affections, and in the end, make them unable to _not_ love them back.”

 

Jongin feels something stir in the pit of his stomach. He exhales shakily.

 

He understands. He gets the double meaning here.

 

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo says warmly, and his eyes hold so much longing when he reaches forward with the other hand to trail his fingers down his cheek, that Jongin is absolutely captivated, frozen in place. “Surely you can understand that?”

 

Jongin gulps. But it’s the iciness of that touch that snaps him out of it.

 

He stands so that Kyungsoo’s no longer touching him, and takes a step back. For the first time since Jongin has arrived here, he bows, politely.

 

“I understand but I disagree,” he says. “You can’t make people love you, Kyungsoo.”

 

Kyungsoo says nothing, and simply watches him, conflicted, as Jongin turns on his heel, and heads out of the door. The walk back to his room is spent earnestly trying not to relive Kyungsoo’s gentle touch against his cheek, the yearning in his eyes.

 

 _“You can’t make people love you, Kyungsoo,”_ he had said. And he’d meant it, too.

 

So why is there a flicker of doubt, somewhere in the back of his mind?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Despite the ambivalent ending of their last conversation, Jongin’s decision to approach Kyungsoo himself seems to have opened a channel between them now. Days later, he sits in his garden, weaving a flower crown like he always used to in the human world, when he hears footsteps on the terrace, advancing.

 

“Hello Kyungsoo,” he says, without turning around, when the steps grow near and then stop. He’s already seen Sehun draping his cloak around himself and hurrying out of the palace this morning – it can only be one person.

 

“Hello Jongin,” Kyungsoo replies pleasantly, coming around to where he can see him. He hesitates for a moment, and then gathers up his dark robes so he can sit down on the grass next to Jongin as well.

 

They sit in silence for a while, with Jongin continuing his chain of poppies, and Kyungsoo absent-mindedly picking a flower himself to fiddle with as he watches. This one doesn’t turn to ash – it seems the flowers of the underworld are immune to that particular trick, and Jongin is glad. He wouldn’t want Kyungsoo’s presence alone to shrivel up his now bright and beautiful flowerbed.

 

Jongin wonders what this is now, between them, because it’s starting to feel like some kind of tentative courtship. He wonders too, why he’s doing nothing to stop it.

 

Kyungsoo hands him the poppy in his fingers for Jongin to add to the chain next, and he barely manages to conceal his smile as he takes it.

 

He remembers what it was like being courted before – before his mother took him away from Olympus for that very reason. Most notable had been Chanyeol, God of prophecy, of healing, and of sunlight. When he had set his sights upon Jongin, it had taken _ages_ for him to give up the pursuit of his affections.

 

He’d been pushier, too, than Kyungsoo is. More expectant. The God of the Underworld, however, sits patiently by his side right now, content to just watch him play with the flowers in his hands. He doesn’t make any move to touch or coddle him, like Chanyeol had.

 

… And apart from the whole kidnapping thing, Jongin finds he likes this a whole lot more.

 

“What are you thinking?” Kyungsoo asks, finally breaking the peaceful quiet between them. Jongin flushes, and tries to remember on what he had been dwelling _before_ Kyungsoo arrived, filling his head with thoughts of romance and flirtation.

 

“I’m thinking about…” he trails off, pondering. “My friends. From before. The Oceanids always used to make flower crowns like this with me. They were better at it though.”

 

He chuckles a little, to himself, thinking on the fond memory. The look on Kyungsoo’s face as he watches him is bittersweet.

 

“And I’m thinking about my mother too,” he says, his laughter fading as he lets that pang of sadness settle in. He’s been swept up in things, of late. He’d almost forgotten to miss her. “She’s the one who taught me how to do this in the first place.”

 

Kyungsoo doesn’t respond for a long time, and Jongin begins to think he isn’t going to.

 

“That must be nice,” he says eventually, his voice a little muted.

 

“What must be?” Jongin lifts his head, blinking.

 

Kyungsoo looks down at the flowers in Jongin’s hands when he speaks. “Having people like that. Friends and relatives, and such.” He pauses. “Having people _there_ for you. It sounds… wonderful.”

 

Jongin’s eyes widen in shock at the admission, and his fingers falter in their work. He stares at Kyungsoo, aghast, for a moment.

 

Kyungsoo looks around at the rest of the garden, and not at him.

 

All this time, Jongin had been so caught up in his own boredom, his own loneliness, his own tragedy at being brought here. Never once has he stopped to think what the underworld must feel like for the one person who never leaves, for the one person who truly _is_ alone.

 

Sehun is only one person, and an underling, after all.

 

Suddenly, a small part of Jongin just wants to apologise. To Kyungsoo. For every rude thing he’s done and said. He has no idea how though.

 

“Here,” he says shakily, reaching for Kyungsoo’s arm. Kyungsoo holds it up for him, with a puzzled look on his face, as Jongin wraps his flower crown around his wrist – three times, and then he fastens it.

 

It’s… some kind of peace offering.

 

Kyungsoo looks from the makeshift bracelet up into his eyes, and for as unreadable as he usually is, he does a very bad job at hiding his delight. Jongin flusters, and looks back down into his lap.

 

“I’m going back inside,” he announces abruptly, and springs to his feet.

 

He hardly hears Kyungsoo’s goodbye with how fast he makes his escape into the palace, running away from whatever the hell it is that he just did. His mother would scold him _so_ harshly for encouraging this.

 

But he can’t deny that, somewhere deep within his chest, Jongin feels positively giddy.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Alone in his room, while Jongin sleeps, Kyungsoo raises his eyes, and looks to the human world.

 

There has been an increase in the numbers of souls coming through to the underworld of late, and he’s curious as to what the reason is. Today, his all-seeing eyes take him to a man and a woman, standing under the bright sunshine, and looking out worriedly across their tilled, bare field.

 

“Nothing?” asks the woman, and the man shakes his head. “How can this be? Summer’s nearly over, they should all be at least two feet tall already.”

 

The man drops his head into his hands in despair.

 

“No one’s crops are growing,” he replies. “I don’t understand! There’s been plenty of rain, and they have all the sun they need, but nothing’s _growing_!”

 

Kyungsoo comes back to reality the moment the woman bursts into tears, and hides her face in her husband’s chest. He drums his fingers on his desk, lost in thought.

 

A moment later, he shakes his head, and goes back to the day’s reports. _It’s nothing,_ he tells himself. _Crops fail all the time. It’s not a big deal._

But nevertheless, worry starts to eat a hole at the bottom of Kyungsoo’s stomach.

 

He pushes the thought aside anyway, for the time being.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After that, it become a habit. These little rendezvous of theirs.

 

Usually, Kyungsoo is the one to approach him. In his garden, or, rarely, in his bedroom. But sometimes, Jongin takes it upon himself to track the other down, wherever he is in the palace, to talk or just spend time together.

 

Like today, when he finds Kyungsoo in his garden, sitting on the edge of the fountain and eating from a bunch of grapes he’s picked from one of the vines. Jongin joins him with a quiet greeting, and sits down beside him, looking up at the splendour of the palace.

 

“Want one?” Kyungsoo offers the grapes with a quirk of his eyebrow. Jongin rolls his eyes, and doesn’t grace that with a reply.

 

“You asked me once,” he says instead, as he gazes up at the grand doors on the terrace. “If I enjoyed staying at this palace. And I have to stay it _is_ very beautiful.”

 

Kyungsoo opens his arms, and gestures grandly. “All of this could be yours, you know?”

 

It’s half a joke, half not, and Jongin looks up at him slyly.

 

“Are you offering me half of your power if I accept your hand?”

 

And he expects Kyungsoo to laugh it off, and treat it as ridiculousness. Because really, it is. Jongin’s not that important, in the grand scheme of things, and normally people would bow and scrape to even be in Kyungsoo’s _presence._

 

But all the humour slips off of Kyungsoo’s face, and he regards him with the utmost earnestness when he next speaks.

 

“I would give you _all_ of it, if you so wished.”

 

Jongin’s breath stutters, and he gets all caught up in Kyungsoo’s gaze.

 

“But would you give me the power to leave?” he asks, with a small, sad smile.

 

Kyungsoo just looks at him for a very long time, and doesn’t give any kind of answer. Jongin didn’t really expect him to. His silence says more than enough.

 

But when he finally has to look away, and drops his eyes, he notices Kyungsoo still has his flower crown, wrapped securely around his wrist.

 

The flowers are starting to whither a little, naturally, and some of them look a little crushed.

 

Almost as if he hasn’t taken it off at all.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Months have passed, in the same way, by the time Jongin finally realises that he is changing.

 

His tan fades first. It’s inevitable with how no sun reaches him anymore, the eerie flicker of lamps and torchlight the only thing guiding his way these days. He’s still far from pale, but he lacks the same lustre, the same glow that he possessed back then in the human world.

 

Next, the gold in his hair gradually subsides. Where there was once bright blonde, the strands have faded to a dark brown he’s never seen before.

 

This particular morning, he sits on his stool in front of his mirror and stares at himself. As if, for the first time, truly taking his new appearance in. It had happened slowly and progressively, and he hadn’t noticed, but now that he has, it’s somewhat difficult to process.

 

“I look different,” he says at length, to Kyungsoo, who hovers in the doorframe as if unsure whether to come in. As if unsure of whether he is welcome yet.

 

Jongin doesn’t know if he is sure either.

 

At Jongin’s words, however, he braves a step forward. And then a few more, until he hovers just behind him. Jongin can feel the coolness of his skin, the stirring of his breath in the still bedroom. He stands so close, and yet doesn’t quite touch.

 

“You look…” Kyungsoo trails off, eyes deep and searching on his reflection. “Beautiful. Flawless.”

 

Jongin lifts his eyes to meet with those bottomless ones in the mirror, and feels a growing tension build between them.

 

This is the first time Kyungsoo’s been so _close._

And in the warm bronze of the mirror, they are a striking pair. Kyungsoo’s always been dark and noble, and for the very first time, Jongin thinks he finally matches that. They look _good_ together, and his mind is the most treacherous of traitors.

 

As if reading his thoughts, Kyungsoo lifts a hand to touch him. Cupping one cheek with his opposite arm, his wrist just brushing under Jongin’s chin. He moves forward, and the back of his head presses against a clothed chest.

 

“Stay,” Kyungsoo says, in his soft, deep voice. The thumb on his cheek trails down to the corner of his mouth, rests on the seam of his lips. Jongin is spellbound – transfixed by the intensity of the gaze reflected back at him – and doesn’t even breathe.

 

For just a moment, he toys with the idea of opening his mouth, and letting that thumb slip inside. Something deep in his stomach shifts, and Kyungsoo’s eyes seem to pulse with darkness.

 

“Stay with me,” he repeats, and the thumb presses just a tiny bit harder. The moment breaks.

 

Jongin stands abruptly, whirls round, and backs himself up against the wall – anything to get Kyungsoo out of his personal space. In his haste, he knocks over the stool, and Kyungsoo steps calmly back to avoid having it fall onto his feet.

 

Jongin looks up – eyes wide and panicked, shoulders tensed and squared – to find Kyungsoo is already staring back at him. Those bottomless eyes are as unreadable as ever, but something about the set of his eyebrows screams frustration.

 

He takes only a moment more to look over Jongin with that expression, and then bows. “I’ll go now,” he says flatly.

 

Kyungsoo turns on his heel then, and the door clicks loudly shut behind him.

 

Jongin stays frozen for a long while, letting his racing heartbeat slow its erratic pulse.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

While Jongin sleeps that night, Kyungsoo stays up late into the night, working through the day’s reports. The number of souls is absolutely alarming today, and he doesn’t know when exactly he’ll get to go to bed and sleep, at this rate.

 

He’s frustrated. His concentration breaks for the fifth time that evening, and he leans back and tears a hand through his already messy hair, leaving it ruffled.

 

 _“You can’t make people love you, Kyungsoo,”_ Jongin had said to him. And maybe he’s right. Maybe, after months and months of letting Jongin get comfortable and settle in, only to have his advances rejected yet again, he’s starting to believe that.

 

He sighs. _No,_ he thinks. _Don’t be pushy. Maybe Jongin just needs more time._

But another thought quickly replaces that. _He’ll never love you back,_ it says.

 

Kyungsoo groans in frustration, if only to drown out all of his thoughts, and the stupid, stupid voices in his head. He isn’t being productive, and he needs a distraction, so he takes a deep breath, and angles his eyes up to the ceiling, losing himself to the human world once more.

 

This time, he finds himself in a packed town hall. There are men of all ages sitting or standing, and either shouting in argument or looking on in intense concern. A certain pair in the middle of the room, with their voices rising higher and higher, look about thirty seconds away from breaking out into a fight.

 

“We have to _ration_ it!” the first one yells. “Otherwise half the population will starve!”

 

“We’ll _all_ starve on such small portions,” the second man snarls. “Forget it. The upper class has to be favoured.”

 

Another man steps in to separate the two when they fly at each other, and they’re dragged off to opposite corners of the room, spitting insults and struggling to break free from their captors.

 

“Has anyone contacted the neighbouring towns about possible trade?” someone else asks, barely audible above the growing murmurs and shouts around him.

 

“Yes,” comes the reply. “None of them have any food to spare either. It seems everyone’s having a bad year for crops. They can’t help us, I’m afraid.”

 

The room dissolves into chaos – more frantic cries and desperate pleas for help. Kyungsoo can hardly keep up, but he finds he doesn’t have to – a certain voice stands out amongst the uproar, and then pulls him right back to the quiet of his own bedroom, and the chill of his own domain.

 

“Kyungsoo?” Jongin asks, with wide frantic eyes, leaning forward across the desk, to shake him by the shoulders. “Kyungsoo!”

 

“I thought you were sleeping,” Kyungsoo says in reply, blinking back to reality and ignoring as his jaw clacks painfully shut at the vigorous bodily shaking. Once he gets a response, Jongin lets him go immediately.

 

“Couldn’t,” he says, looking agitated as he paces round the desk and takes a seat at the foot of Kyungsoo’s bed. “I had a nightmare.”

 

Kyungsoo watches his path round the room, and when he can no longer crane his neck comfortably, gets up to take a seat beside him. He makes sure not to sit _quite_ too close.

 

“Does that… happen often?” he asks, gently, laying one hand against his arm. He ignores when Jongin shivers in reaction to the touch – his skin is always cold, so it’s not that strange.

 

“Often enough,” he says, shrugging. But his whole demeanour is off. He seems worked up and upset.

 

“What was it about?”

 

“The same thing they’re _always_ about,” Jongin replies, shooting Kyungsoo a wry and rather unpleasant smile. “Being taken down into a deep, dark hole and never seeing my mother again.”

 

Kyungsoo swallows.

 

“Jongin,” he says, but Jongin tries to shrug the hand off his arm. Kyungsoo presses forward, when he catches one tear drip from his eyes just before he buries his face in his hands. “Jongin,” he says again, more insistently, as he wraps his other arm around his shoulder blades.

 

Jongin just sighs, and lets him. He doesn’t push him off even when he’s wiped away his tears, sat back up, and turned to face Kyungsoo despite their proximity.

 

“What were you doing just now, when I came in?” he asks, changing the subject. He’s already gnawed a bright red track into his bottom lip, and Kyungsoo can only see properly from this close. “I had to call your name _six_ _times_ for you to notice I was even in the room.”

 

“I was… watching the human world,” he says, removing his arm from around Jongin’s back. The skinship is making him want things he knows he can’t have.

 

If Jongin notices anything though, he doesn’t comment. “And how is it there?” he asks tersely.

 

“The same as always,” Kyungsoo lies.

 

“What about my friends?” he persists, clearly still just as upset as before, but now with anger creeping into his tone. “The Oceanids? You can see them too, right? That’s how you watched _me_ after all.”

 

“Hey now,” Kyungsoo tries to soothe, catching one of his wrists, and stroking his thumb delicately across the pulse point there. It does nothing to settle Jongin back down.

 

“So how _are_ they, Kyungsoo?” Jongin snarls, fighting against him. “Do they miss me? Are they making flower crowns without me?”

 

His voice gets louder, verging on a shout, and Kyungsoo has to grab his other wrist with how hard he struggles.

 

“Jongin!” he tries to get through to him. “Calm _down_!”

 

“Or have they forgotten about my existence already?” he growls, switching from pulling away to clawing at Kyungsoo’s face with the hands in his grip. He fights so hard that he almost gets him in the eye, and it’s at that moment Kyungsoo decides he’s just had enough.

 

In one swift, powerful movement, he forces Jongin backwards. The flat of his back hits the bed with a low thud, and Kyungsoo hears the air force its way out of his lungs with a sharp exhale. He pins both wrists above Jongin’s head as he hovers above him, and looks down into his shocked face with hard eyes.

 

“Calm. Down.” he says forcefully, voice firm. Jongin’s face wavers in indecision, for a moment, and all that can be heard in the otherwise quiet room is Jongin’s harsh panting from their mini grappling match, moments before.

 

And then, just as fast as it had come, all the defiance and anger drains from Jongin’s expression at once. He looks away guiltily, and whispers: “I’m sorry.”

 

Kyungsoo isn’t sure why, exactly, but he’ll accept it. His face softens, and he releases Jongin’s wrists, flopping down onto his side, just next to him.

 

“It’s alright,” he says, resisting the urge to reach out and cup his cheek.

 

The position is intimately close, but Jongin doesn’t comment or move away. He merely brings his hands down to his chest, and rubs at the places where Kyungsoo had held him.

 

“Did I bruise you?” Kyungsoo asks, taking one wrist from him and turning it round to inspect. Jongin nods meekly. “I’m sorry, I should have kept my strength in check a bit more than I did.”

 

Jongin looks like he might speak, but in the next moment, Kyungsoo presses a tender kiss to the inside of his wrist, and his breath stutters out instead. His cheeks are dark when Kyungsoo looks heatedly up at him, and braves pressing forward for another as he watches.

 

Jongin flusters, but makes no move to stop him. Kyungsoo hides a satisfied smile behind Jongin’s palm as he continues to fawn over him – it might only be Jongin’s wrist, but it’s the furthest he’s gotten so far and he’ll take it.

 

Jongin shudders – the movement wracks its way through his entire body – and by the time he can bring himself to speak again, Kyungsoo has stopped watching him quite so intently.

 

“You know I have to go back, don’t you?” he says quietly, but something about it sounds more resigned that defiant. “You do know that right, Kyungsoo?”

 

Kyungsoo sighs deeply, and presses Jongin’s palm to his cheek with both hands. He closes his eyes, and feels the softness of the warmth of his skin against his own, relishing in the contact.

 

“I know,” he says at length, the words deep and rumbling and painful in his chest. “I know Jongin.”

 

Jongin sighs softly next to him.

 

“But I love you so _selfishly_ ,” Kyungsoo concedes.

 

Jongin is quiet. Then: “I should go back to my room now. It’s late.”

 

Kyungsoo opens his eyes. It’s not a reply, not a proper one anyway. But then he’s stopped waiting, stopped expecting some kind of return on his affections for a while now.

 

He lets go of Jongin’s hand, and the other stands, clutching it to his chest like it’s been scalded.

 

No more words are exchanged between them before Jongin turns around and walks out. But Kyungsoo watches his every movement, his every step, and stares after him long after he’s left the room.

 

He thinks about what he just admitted to Jongin.

 

Maybe it’s time to back down.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Junmyeon.”

 

Junmyeon looks up sharply at the foreign voice to find a stranger in the room. She tenses – no one here should know her by that name – and the baby in her lap begins to cry.

 

The stranger drops his hood around his shoulders, and she lets out the breath she was holding.

 

“Baekhyun,” she says in greeting, with a curt nod, and she relaxes as she starts to bounce the baby up and down on her knee to calm him down.

 

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, huh?” Baekhyun asks, looking around the nursery in interest. “It’s a far cry from Olympus Junmyeon, you should come home.”

 

“I suppose that’s why you’re here,” she sighs, scooping the baby up in her arms now that he’s calmed down again. She looks out of the window and into the dark night outside. “Better looking after some human’s child than back where the Gods won’t even let me have my own.”

 

Baekhyun’s smile slips from his face.

 

“You’re killing them, you know. We’ve seen more deaths from this alone than in the whole of the last decade. They’re about to start a war over it too.”

 

Junmyeon looks back at him sharply. “That’s the entire _point_.”

 

Baekhyun turns away and clasps his hands behind him. His cloak has slipped down off of his shoulders enough to show the top of his wings, magnificent even while folded, flat against his back.

 

Because he is the Messenger God. Of course he was the one sent to fetch her.

 

“Yifan has ordered that you come home,” he says, with a solemn nod. “And also that you bid the plants to grow again, and end this famine.”

 

Junmyeon raises one eyebrow as she rocks the baby. “And you expect me to obey?”

 

Baekhyun looks at her with a half-smile. “ _I_ don’t. But you know how he is,” he sighs. “Just doing my job, is all.”

 

Junmyeon smiles softly. She’s always liked Baekhyun.

 

“Then do your job again for me,” she says, looking up with a determined glint in her eye. “And tell him that I won’t set foot in Olympus unless my son is there too. Tell him that if he wants me not to wipe out the entire human race, Jongin must come home.”

 

Baekhyun turns to her fully, and smiles brightly before he leaves.

 

“Will do,” he says, and then he’s out the door.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next morning, Kyungsoo sits alone in the deathly quiet of his throne room, pondering.

 

He isn’t in a particularly good mood.

 

“Kyungsoo,” a soft, deep voice calls him from one of the archways that leads into the room, and he glances disinterestedly to the side to see what Sehun wants this time. When he notices that the other has someone else with him, however, he straightens up in his seat. “We have a guest.”

 

The stranger reaches up and pushes his hood back, revealing a bright, mischievous face that Kyungsoo would recognise anywhere.

 

But something about the arrival makes his heart drop.

 

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, and said man bows deeply in greeting when he reaches the foot of the steps leading up to Kyungsoo’s throne.

 

“I think you already know why I’m here,” Baekhyun says, with a wry little smile. Kyungsoo sighs deeply.

 

“I have his father’s word,” he says. “A law is a law.”

 

“And a famine is a famine,” Baekhyun counters, with a shrug. “What choice do we have, at this point? Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed all the deaths from starvation of late. Junmyeon is going to wipe out all of humanity if we don’t set this right.”

 

Kyungsoo stays silent.

 

“Look, I’m not saying it’s fair, or anything,” Baekhyun placates, holding up his hands. “But it’s what must be done.”

 

Kyungsoo rests his head on one palm. “And I suppose Yifan has given the order?”

 

Baekhyun nods. “He has.”

 

Kyungsoo stops and thinks for a moment. His heart feels heavy. ‘ _You know I have to go back, don’t you?_ ’ plays itself, over and over again, in his head.

 

“Alright,” he says. “Alright. Sehun – show him to Jongin’s room. I’ll be retiring to my quarters for the time being. And Baekhyun, please –”

 

And here, he stops. Because his voice wavers, a moment of weakness seeming to overcome him. When he next speaks, it’s softer, a little more transparent.

 

“Please tell him that I’m there. In case he wants to say goodbye.”

 

Baekhyun nods, and neither him nor Sehun utter a word as Kyungsoo walks out. His face is utterly blank, completely devoid of emotion. Both of them know better.

 

“Let’s go,” says Sehun, in the ensuing silence, and Baekhyun nods, following on.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jongin hasn’t been awake very long, but he’s been fretting for the entire time that he was.

 

Last night in Kyungsoo’s room was… something. A lot happened. A lot he’s been trying to wrap his head around and come to terms with.

 

First is the fact that he went to Kyungsoo in the first place because he had a nightmare. He was frightened and he wanted someone to be with – someone that would offer him any kind of comfort – and in his sleepy, upset state, he’d thought _Kyungsoo_ was an appropriate person to fill that role.

 

And second was that kiss. Not a real one – just to his wrist. But he’d been so, _so_ affected by it. His skin still burns at the place Kyungsoo pressed his mouth to, with the memory of it.

 

And in the past months too, Kyungsoo has become a person he likes spending time with. Not just someone he tolerates, but someone he actively seeks out, someone whose conversation he looks forward to, and misses in the short time they’re apart each night.

 

He hasn’t been able to overlook the warm feeling in his gut when they’re together either, but up until now, he hadn’t realised what it meant. Now, alone in his bedroom, realisation hits him with all the weight in the world, and momentarily, he is stunned.

 

His mother would have never have allowed a suitor like Kyungsoo to get within ten feet of him, of course. But Jongin wonders – if Kyungsoo had been able to court him the proper way, would he still be resisting right now?

 

Because maybe, he realises, if Kyungsoo gave him the _choice_ to leave, he would stay.

 

Jongin’s sudden epiphany is interrupted, however, by a soft knock on the door.

 

“Come in,” he calls, expecting Kyungsoo. He sits up when Sehun pushes his way into the room instead, with another man in tow.

 

“… Baekhyun?” he asks in confusion, and Baekhyun shoots him his signature grin in greeting.

 

“Long time no see, Jongin,” comes the reply. They’ve met before, of course. Baekhyun had been the only line of communication between him, his mother, and Olympus, after he’d left.

 

But never did he think he’d see him again down here, in the inky depths of the underworld.

 

“What are you doing here?” Jongin asks, in that same line of thought.

 

“I’ve come to take you home to Olympus,” Baekhyun says. “It’s been ordered by your father.”

 

Jongin smiles a wry kind of smile to himself, and then stands so he can stretch his back and shoulders. “Well I’m afraid Kyungsoo won’t be very happy about that, and he’s in charge down here. So no can do.”

 

Baekhyun falls silent. Sehun is the one that speaks up instead.

 

“Kyungsoo is… allowing it, Jongin.”

 

And Jongin’s stomach _drops_.

 

“What?” he says carefully, turning to Sehun with wide eyes.

 

“Kyungsoo has also ordered that you be taken home,” Baekhyun clarifies.

 

Jongin doesn’t respond. A horrible mix of emotions starts to churn within him – panic clawing at his throat, and something else, a lot like anger, branding him from within. For a moment, he’s simply overcome by the feeling, but then he gets somewhat of a grip on himself, and he speaks.

 

“Where is he?” he demands, trying his best to keep his voice steady and calm. “Where is Kyungsoo right now, Sehun?”

 

“In his room.”

 

“Okay,” Jongin nods, gripping his hands into fists at his sides. He takes three unsteady steps forward towards the door, and then stops. “Stay here,” he tells Baekhyun, and then he is gone.

 

His march through the palace to Kyungsoo’s bedroom is not a calm one, though he manages to stop himself from breaking into a run. Jongin feels angry and confused, and Kyungsoo has a lot to answer for right now.

 

He’s been toyed with for months, and now that he’s finally ready to return Kyungsoo’s feelings, even if it’s just a little bit, Kyungsoo decides _now_ is a good time to just… let him go.

 

It isn’t fair.

 

“Kyungsoo,” he demands, as soon as he gets to his room and slams the door shut behind him. “ _What_ is the meaning of this?”

 

Kyungsoo looks up upon his arrival, from where he sits at the foot of his bed. In his hands, he holds one of the pomegranates from Jongin’s garden, already split open, the seeds glistening under the lamp light and the juice staining his fingertips sticky and red. His expression is dark, pensive.

 

“It’s time for you to go back home, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, and his face and voice are strangely flat. The whole thing just winds Jongin up even further.

 

He advances until he stands just a meter in front of Kyungsoo, staring him down, with rage unbridled.

 

“Why?” he retorts, indignant. “After keeping me locked away in this realm for so long, why _now_ Kyungsoo?”

 

Kyungsoo looks down now, breaking eye contact. He distracts himself by picking a couple of seeds out of the pomegranate, but he doesn’t eat them. They simply rest there, plump and wet, on the tips of his fingers.

 

“Because your father has ordered it.”

 

Jongin frowns. “I _know_ that,” he bites. “But _you_ don’t have to follow that. You have his word and he can’t go back on it _now_.”

 

“Why are you even arguing?” Kyungsoo asks with an exasperated sigh. When he looks up at Jongin this time, there’s something wholly despondent about his expression. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

 

Jongin lets out a hollow laugh. “How would you know a damn thing about what _I_ want, Kyungsoo?” he asks from between gritted teeth.

 

Kyungsoo frowns, starting to look a little annoyed. “Because you’ve been telling me that for months now. What do you _expect_ me to think?”

 

Jongin runs an agitated hand through his hair, and blinks back the unusual sting in his eyes. “So that’s just it then? You’re done with me?”

 

Kyungsoo doesn’t answer.

 

“You don’t love me anymore?” he presses, and his voice sounds raspy and hollow.

 

 _That_ gets a response. Kyungsoo springs to his feet, his eyebrows furrowed, he steps up closer to Jongin, and looks furiously up into his eyes.

 

In his hands, he still has the pomegranate. The fruit in one, and the seeds in the other.

 

“Don’t you _dare_ say that Jongin,” Kyungsoo growls. “Don’t even _suggest_ it. I’m doing this _because_ I love you more than anything else in existence, and this is what you wanted.”

 

Jongin’s stomach churns with the words, but his eyes are still bright with defiant anger.

 

“You just don’t get it, do you?” he says, and his voice has dropped to almost a whisper. Kyungsoo’s so close. His eyes dip down to the pomegranate.

 

“Enlighten me.”

 

Jongin looks back up, and it’s a challenge.

 

With no gentleness, he grabs hold of one of Kyungsoo’s wrists, and lifts the fingers – with the pomegranate seeds – into his waiting, open mouth. Jongin feels the burst of tangy sourness on his tongue before he swallows, and he closes his eyes, relishing in the first morsel of food to pass his lips in all this time he’s spent living in the underworld.

 

Jongin lets Kyungsoo’s fingers slip softly from his mouth. When he opens his eyes again, to look at him, the other’s face has lost all traces of anger. Instead, it’s replaced by a wide-eyed, shimmering shock, that Jongin secretly delights in.

 

And for just a moment, for just one long, heart-stopping moment, there is absolute quiet and stillness between them. Nothing moves. Neither of them even breathes.

 

And then everything bursts into movement all at once.

 

Kyungsoo surges forward and grabs for him – the pomegranate is no longer in his hand as those same sticky fingers palm at his face and pull him down. Jongin stumbles forward, giddy and unsteady, at the rough motion, and then moans in heady surprise when Kyungsoo kisses him, hard.

 

He kisses like a drowning man starving for oxygen, but Jongin’s the one left feeling like he can’t breathe as that mouth rains down on his, over and over again. His eyes are screwed shut, and he doesn’t know when his hands fisted into the front of Kyungsoo’s robes, pulling him closer, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. Anything to have Kyungsoo kiss him more, harder, deeper.

 

Jongin whines and Kyungsoo does – one hand sliding around the back of his head and up into his hair to grip him close. He licks at the seam of Jongin’s mouth, making him shudder, making him open up in shaky surrender, and let Kyungsoo inside.

 

In the next moment, they’re spinning round as fast as Jongin’s head is, and he keens a broken little noise as Kyungsoo backs him up into the bed. Kyungsoo’s tongue is in his mouth – it’s wet and warm and soft. Kyungsoo’s skin is still cold, but Jongin feels sick with heat as his knees buckle, and his body spills back against the sheets.

 

They have to break apart then as Jongin falls back, with Kyungsoo standing over him, looking down. Jongin squirms at the intoxication of that gaze, feeling nervous and aroused – something in his body seems to have awakened now, for the very first time in his life. Because Kyungsoo watches him like he’s something to be _devoured,_ and Jongin doesn’t think he’d like very much to stop him.

 

“You’re bound now,” Kyungsoo tells him, and his voice is deep and animalistic, but also so incredibly _fond._ “You’re bound to _me_.”

 

Jongin bites his lip, and nods in desperation, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes. He wants Kyungsoo to _do_ something, not just stand there and admire him, and with one last little squirm, he manages to prompt the other into action.

 

One of Kyungsoo’s legs bends up to kneel on the bed, shoving both of Jongin’s apart and he gulps. Then Kyungsoo descends, hands going to work on the knot that ties his robes closed, and his mouth attaching to the juncture of Jongin’s neck and shoulder, making him gasp.

 

“Kyungsoo,” he whines, when Kyungsoo bites down and sucks. He feels like a wild animal, being pinned down and marked. And the scary thing is that he loves it, that with every passing second, he finds he wants more. “ _Kyungsoo!_ ”

 

He feels the fabric around his body loosen when Kyungsoo gets the knot free, feels the cold air of the room rush over him as it’s brushed aside to pool around his naked body. Kyungsoo pulls away from his neck with one last heavy press of lips to look down at him with awe and adoration and all the infatuation in the world. Jongin turns bright red, and moves his hands to cover himself.

 

“No, don’t,” Kyungsoo says, catching those very same hands and bringing one up to his mouth to kiss the tip of his thumb. “Let me see you.”

 

Jongin wriggles under the gaze, but lets Kyungsoo continue with his heavy scrutiny. He feels those eyes on him – trailing down his neck and torso, and dipping between his thighs. It’s so intense and exhilarating that it makes his already half-hard cock twitch without even being touched, and Jongin tosses his head to the side in shame, breaking eye contact.

 

“Don’t be ashamed, no, don’t be ashamed,” Kyungsoo coos to him, letting go of his hand to reach down and trail his fingers down his cheek. It makes Jongin look back up at him again, with watery eyes, when he presses the pad of his thumb against his lips, like he did that time, a while back, in front of his bedroom mirror.

 

This time, however, he does part his lips and sucks the digit in, watching Kyungsoo’s face closely the whole time. They maintain their all-consuming eye contact. Jongin feels like he wants to wither and faint when Kyungsoo’s lips part, and his cheeks pick up in colour.

 

Kyungsoo pulls his hand away then, and Jongin is slick and open-mouthed when he drops down on top of him, thigh fitting between both of Jongin’s, and, even though Kyungsoo’s still wearing all of his robes, erection pressing insistently against his thigh.

 

Kyungsoo grinds down on him, and it’s the friction against his cock, the weight of another body on top of his that he’s never felt, that has Jongin throwing his head back with a long, loud groan. He bucks up into it when Kyungsoo does it again, and then his hands come up to scrabble helplessly against the other’s back.

 

“Kyungsoo,” he babbles, and Kyungsoo kisses his cheek and then his eyelid as he writhes under him. “Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, _Kyungsoo.”_

It’s all he seems capable of saying at the moment. Kyungsoo doesn’t seem to mind – he trails open-mouthed kisses down Jongin’s throat and adam’s apple as they continue to rock together, and then laves his tongue into the dip of Jongin’s right collarbone.

 

It feels debauched. Lecherous. Jongin digs his nails in but he wants to feel skin, he wants to feel _Kyungsoo_ naked and here with him.

 

“Take your robes off,” he hisses, but that makes Kyungsoo pull back above him, and Jongin wants to cry.

 

He presses a finger to his lips. “Not yet, sweetheart. I’m not done with you.” And then he drops down to kiss him again, smouldering and slow, clouding up Jongin’s mind so much that he forgets to be annoyed.

 

In the middle of the kiss, Kyungsoo’s hands smooth out across his shoulders, pinning him down so that he can trail his mouth off the corner of Jongin’s, along his jaw, and down his neck. Jongin whimpers at the loss – kissing Kyungsoo, he’s come to realise, is something he quite enjoys. But the sound gets choked off when Kyungsoo skips his mouth down even further, to his nipple, and circles his tongue around it.

 

He gasps. His hands leave Kyungsoo’s back to twist into his hair as the other bites down gently and tugs. Looking down through clumpy lashes reveals a Kyungsoo who’s already watching him with hungry, darkened eyes.

 

Kyungsoo pulls off of his nipple with a pop, the cold air hitting Jongin’s wet, sensitive skin with a sudden gust of cold, making him shiver.

 

“I want to,” Kyungsoo says, interrupting himself before he finishes his own sentence, to press three scorching kisses down the length of Jongin’s sternum, travelling lower and making something in his gut _burn._ “I want to worship you.”

 

The words make Jongin’s head swim. Here he has one of the most powerful Gods in the whole universe, kissing down the softest part of his tummy and licking into his navel, and ready to worship him. Ready to worship _him,_ Jongin, who isn’t really anything special in comparison to the other Gods.

 

He wonders if this is all a dream. He wonders how it’s even _possible_ for him to get so lucky, and to be here with Kyungsoo like this.

 

But Kyungsoo seems entirely serious. He presses his nose into Jongin’s stomach, making the muscles there go concave when he inhales deeply. “You smell so good,” he tells him, pushing his cheek into the skin to nuzzle, close his eyes, and relish in it.

 

Jongin’s nails scrape through his hair when he trails even lower, and he has to swallow with the building pressure in his abdomen because of where Kyungsoo is headed.

 

“Please,” he whispers, when Kyungsoo’s cheek grazes against the side of his cock. But Kyungsoo doesn’t oblige him, choosing instead to bring his hands round under Jongin’s thighs, prop him up, and spread his legs apart.

 

The exposure makes him feel vulnerable. He drops his hands from Kyungsoo’s hair to twist into the sheets, and a rosiness blooms across the expanse of his chest. Jongin is embarrassed.

 

But when Kyungsoo looks up from between his legs and chuckles, so darkly, like that, his bashfulness is replaced by a growing desire, burning red hot in the core of his abdomen. He never thought he’d like for Kyungsoo to treat him like this, to ravish him, to tease, but here they are and Jongin _wants._

 

With lips that are starting to warm up by now, Kyungsoo presses a line of delicate kisses from just inside one knee, all the way up to his inner thigh. Jongin’s mouth falls open. He groans, and bucks into the feeling. But still, Kyungsoo doesn’t put his mouth where he wants it, moving instead to the other thigh, to give that one the same treatment of tender, torturous kisses as well.

 

Jongin grunts in objection when Kyungsoo bites down to suck a hickey halfway up his thigh. He whines, impatient, when he moves up higher to mark him again and again.

 

“Alright,” Kyungsoo soothes with a trace of humour in his voice, moments later, when Jongin makes another noise of displeasure. Jongin can’t see him, with his head thrown back into the bedsheets, but he lifts his neck now to look down at him.

 

The sight he’s met with is so arousing that he feels all his muscles melt, turning to liquid, and he almost gives up and flops his head back again. But it’s worth holding out when he gets to see Kyungsoo take his cock in one hand – he jolts at the first pleasurable touch – and push it up to his stomach so he can lick a long, wet stripe up the underside.

 

Jongin keens, soft and desperate, and sinks his teeth into his lower lip as Kyungsoo drops his eyes and mostly disappears from view to suck one of his balls into his mouth. He swirls it around, and the warmth is too much, too heady. Clawing at the sheets, Jongin arches his back and twists his head to the side to bare his neck. His hips only stay put because of Kyungsoo’s firm grip on one thigh, and even then, Jongin fights against it.

 

Kyungsoo releases him, and gives him a moment to calm down, for his rapid breathing to slow, and for his back to flatten out against the bed again. In the meantime, he rests one cheek against Jongin’s inner thigh, watching him attentively as he lazily jerks him off with the hand still on his cock.

 

“You’re so beautiful Jongin,” Kyungsoo tells him warmly. “Every part of you. Every part of you is beautiful.”

 

Jongin huffs and squirms at the flattery, not sure how to respond to so much affection. But he doesn’t have to – in the next moment, Kyungsoo gets both hands under his ass and lifts his hips up. Jongin yelps in surprise, but the sound trails off into an even more shocked moan when Kyungsoo spreads his cheeks apart, and presses a searing kiss right against the pucker of his asshole.

 

“What are you doing?” he manages to gasp, but the next thing he feels is Kyungsoo’s tongue, lapping against the rim, and he can do nothing but fill his lungs with cold air, and crush the bedsheets between his fingers.

 

Kyungsoo pokes the tip of his tongue against him next, testing the ring of muscles. Jongin grits his teeth, but can’t stop from mewling anyway, and he feels his cock bounce a little as jolts. A drop of precome smears against his stomach.

 

Part of him wants to cry, but it’s not from any pain or displeasure. Of everything he’s done for the first time today, _this_ feels the most like defilement. _This_ feels the most like being corrupted.

 

And Jongin, who just an hour before, had remained a virgin God, finds he doesn’t care at all.

 

Because Kyungsoo stretches him open with his thumbs, and licks inside him now. It makes Jongin whimper and trash around, the feeling too much, the pleasure, coiling up tight in his stomach, too good.

 

Kyungsoo tongue-fucks him for a while longer. Jongin luxuriates in it, back arching and hands travelling up his body to play with his own nipples. His cock lies, rock hard and heavy, against his stomach, and he keeps making all sorts of choked-off, filthy little noises.

 

Jongin is the very picture of exquisite impurity. Laid out in submission for Kyungsoo’s taking, with sweat glittering over his skin, and in a pool of his own unfastened robes. There’s a dishevelled ecstasy about the scene, with the way his face contorts in pleasure, hands moving further up to pull his hair into messy rifts, his reddened lips parting in a silent cry.

 

But it’s not enough. Jongin might be innocent when it comes to experience, but it’s not like he _doesn’t_ know what comes next.

 

He wants more.

 

“Kyungsoo,” he breathes, swallowing thickly as he lifts his head to look down at him again. Kyungsoo’s face comes back into view after one particularly sensual curl of his tongue. “I want – I want… _you_.”

 

Jongin flushes bright red under the weight of Kyungsoo’s gaze, because he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to put into words what it is that he wants. But Kyungsoo seems to understand anyway, because he half smiles, stands and rolls his shoulders. Then he leaves Jongin to cool off for a moment on the bed, while he fetches something from a table off to the side of the room.

 

Jongin watches him go and come back with hazy eyes. There’s a small vial of oil in his hand when he returns, standing at the foot of the bed, and suddenly, Jongin wants to challenge him. He crawls backwards until he reaches the pillows, daring Kyungsoo to follow with a coy look from under his lashes.

 

 _Come and get me,_ it says.

 

And Kyungsoo does.

 

First, he makes quick work of his robes, loosening the knot and dropping them to the floor. Jongin gets to admire him in all of his glory as he crawls towards him slowly, hungrily – strong pecs, a soft stomach, and a thick hard-on that makes Jongin embarrassed by how much he wants. His stomach lurches with renewed appetite.

 

He settles back down into the pillows as Kyungsoo looms over him, parting his legs submissively to make space for the other in between. Jongin feels hunted, like prey, but never in his life did he think that could be a good thing. Never in his life did he think he’d _want_ to lie down and let someone else have their way with him like this.

 

He’s learning a lot of new things today.

 

“This will feel strange,” Kyungsoo warns him, as he takes a hold of his ankles, pushing his knees up to his chest. His eyes dip down and his lashes catch in the light when he busies himself with the vial of oil, pouring some out onto his fingers. “I’ll start now, okay?”

 

Jongin sucks in his bottom lip, and nods. Kyungsoo shuffles a little closer, and then the coldness of one fingertip presses against his entrance, probing. He feels himself clench at first, and Kyungsoo waits until he’s relaxed somewhat to start pushing in.

 

Kyungsoo was right: it does feel strange. Jongin wriggles a little, and Kyungsoo curls his finger, but it doesn’t feel much better even with the added movement. Still – it isn’t _painful_. So after some slow pumping in and out, he lets Kyungsoo put in a second.

 

 _That_ one aches. Jongin fists the sheets, his mouth set in a grimace while he clenches around Kyungsoo’s fingers. It takes three kisses – with Kyungsoo dipping down to press their mouths together, and Jongin clinging to his lips desperately each time – and Kyungsoo taking hold if his cock, to tug on it a couple of times, before Jongin lets him continue. And then, it’s only because the pleasure from being jerked off has successfully distracted him from the pain in his ass.

 

Jongin does not like the third finger. At all. It stings, and with every small movement, the pain only gets worse. He’s _just_ about to voice his displeasure, to tell Kyungsoo to take his fingers out, but then… then the tip of one finger brushes against _something,_ and Jongin gasps _._

Kyungsoo does it again, and Jongin digs his shoulder blades back into the bed. Electricity crackles through his stomach, and Kyungsoo presses a gentle, encouraging kiss to the front of one of his shins.

 

“More,” he murmurs, losing himself to the feeling. Kyungsoo indulges him, curling all three fingers up against that sweet spot, and speeding up, making Jongin spit and weep, and mess up the bed covers.

 

It feels like too soon after that that Kyungsoo draws back, pulling his fingers out. “Shush,” Kyungsoo chides, pressing one finger to Jongin’s lips when he whines in complaint at the loss. “I’ll be back inside you in a moment.”

 

Well _that_ makes Jongin’s whole body feel feverish. He reaches up languidly for Kyungsoo’s face, to pull him down for another kiss.

 

It’s slow and luxurious. Kyungsoo’s lips are warm and damp, and so, so plump as they close around his top one. Jongin wonders how he’d never noticed what an enticing pair of lips the other has before – or, if he did, at least how he’d never felt the urge to kiss and lick and bite them for all the time he’s been here.

 

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says when they pull apart, but pecks him one more time for good measure. “Turn over for me.”

 

Jongin rolls over onto his stomach, confusedly. He hears Kyungsoo huff a soft breath of laughter from behind him.

 

“I meant kneel,” he corrects, fondly. Jongin flusters horribly, but complies, lifting himself up onto quivering hands and knees. He feels Kyungsoo shift behind him, and then a warmth envelops him, blanketing his back, brushing against his thighs and ass. A whisper tickles the shell of his ear. “You’re just so innocent, aren’t you?”

 

Jongin shudders at the sudden onslaught of _Kyungsoo_. He can feel him, so close. He can feel his cock, too, for the very first time, nudging insistently against his behind, settling shallowly into the crack between his ass cheeks. And the words, too, make him feel unsteady – he doesn’t know whether to take them as complementary or demeaning.

 

Luckily, Kyungsoo answers that for him.

 

“I love that about you,” he says, kissing Jongin’s nape. Out of the corner of his eye, Jongin can see one of his hands fiddling clumsily with the vial of oil, spilling some of it on the bed. “I love that I’m the only one who gets to do this to you.”

 

Jongin can hardly process the words, so lost in his own personal cloud of lust when Kyungsoo lifts his hand to coat the entire cleft of his ass with oil, before rubbing a generous amount on his cock. Then the tip of it slips easily between his ass cheeks to poke at Jongin’s entrance, just shy of where he most wants it. He tries to push back, to get it to slide in, but it just smears down past his entrance, and over his balls. He whines.

 

“So impatient,” Kyungsoo chuckles, steadying his cock with one hand.

 

And then he pushes in.

 

Jongin feels the burn and stretch, and slowly arches his back to get away from the feeling as Kyungsoo fills him to the brim. He pants, and Kyungsoo bites his shoulder to resist the urge to move, and thrust into him again. For a long while, they just stay like that, with the front of Kyungsoo’s thighs pressed flush against the back of Jongin’s, and Jongin feeling thoroughly, thoroughly stuffed full.

 

But eventually, they both get a little impatient.

 

“I’m gonna move now, okay?” Kyungsoo tells him, kissing the same spot he just sunk his teeth into, softly. Jongin only manages to murmur a quiet little agreement, floundering to get a grip on himself and reality.

 

Kyungsoo pulls out and pushes in. The pain is so sudden it makes Jongin yelp, and Kyungsoo hisses.

 

“Don’t clench,” he grunts, and Jongin belatedly loosens his muscles, trying his best to sink into the feeling and relax.

 

It takes a while and some patience, but Kyungsoo does eventually manage to build a gentle pace that doesn’t hurt Jongin. He still groans and shifts underneath him, unsure yet if this is something he enjoys or not – but Kyungsoo seems to. His breathing, right next to his ear, has picked up rapidly, and his normally cold body is hot against his back, making him sweat, making their skin catch and stick whenever they touch.

 

Kyungsoo stops thrusting for a moment to catch his breath, merely grinding and canting his hips needily against Jongin’s ass. One arm comes up to wrap around Jongin’s chest, pulling him closer, tighter, the other landing on the bed to help prop them both up.

 

They kiss then. Jongin turns his head to the side, bleary eyes searching for the man behind him. And Kyungsoo leans in, catching his lips with a slow, obscene intensity.

 

Jongin twists a little, trying to find a better way to kiss Kyungsoo back. When he does manage, it changes the angle of where Kyungsoo’s cock is pressing into him too, and all at once, he breaks out of the kiss with a loud gasp.

 

Kyungsoo pushes in again and he mewls, his cheeks filling with renewed colour. It’s that spot again. That same spot that sends little tendrils of euphoria curling throughout his bloodstream. Except this time, it’s Kyungsoo’s _cock_ that’s moving up against it, and it’s thicker and blunter than his fingers were.

 

It feels downright amazing.

 

“Harder,” Jongin demands, and his eyes prick with tears when Kyungsoo obeys at once.

 

His hips snap forward with a sudden ferocity, making the bed wobble beneath them. Jongin arches and shakes, keening out desperately on each thrust. There’s a building pressure, a building sense of _bliss_ in his gut that makes him push his hips wantonly back for more, even when Kyungsoo hits them with force enough to bruise.

 

In the next moment, Kyungsoo unwraps his arm from around his chest, and grabs Jongin’s wrists. He straightens up, pinning them behind the small of his back, and Jongin falls, face first, into the pillow.

 

His neck strains painfully to the side so he can look up at Kyungsoo with his mouth open and slick, his eyes half-mast and brimming with tears. Kyungsoo’s brows are furrowed in concentration, and there’s sweat dripping down his temples as he pummels into him even harder than before, making the bed hit against the wall loudly and repeatedly.

 

“Ugh, Jongin,” Kyungsoo chokes, his hips stuttering in their rhythm when Jongin decides to clench around him. He rolls his shoulders, and then, leaving one hand to keep his arms pinned in place behind his back, bends a little to reach down and around their bodies for Jongin’s cock, to stroke him to completion in time with his thrusting.

 

It doesn’t take much longer. Jongin’s virginal body is unused to being treated and touched like this, and he’s already hyper-sensitive and on edge by the time Kyungsoo touches him. He comes with a wail that he smothers into the pillows, back arching and arms straining against Kyungsoo’s binds. He feels something wet spurt against his own stomach, feels a heady, dizzy ecstasy burst through his body, whiting out his vision, and seizing all control of his muscles as he spasms, once, twice, and then goes lax.

 

It’s such an all-consuming feeling that he doesn’t even notice Kyungsoo continuing to push in and out of him even as his body sags down against the blankets. It’s only when he feels something wet gush inside of him, hears Kyungsoo’s needy, helpless groan that he turns his head to rest his cheek on the pillow, so he can look back and watch his face as he comes.

 

Kyungsoo stills above him, hands still gripped vicelike around Jongin’s wrists. Jongin wonders if it’s going to leave marks, and the thought somehow thrills him. He’s already got plenty – littered over his neck and shoulders and thighs from earlier – but the thought of being claimed like this, of _belonging,_ has him giddy.

 

It’s with a disgusting, slick feeling, that Kyungsoo finally pulls out. When Jongin’s ass instinctively clenches, feeling achy and hollow, some of Kyungsoo’s come drips down the inside of his thighs. He can only wonder what that must look like – a defiled, creamy mess.

 

And this is it, he guesses. After months and months of courtship, Kyungsoo has finally managed, with Jongin’s consent, to deflower him. Which means whatever it is they have between them has been consummated.

 

It’s official: Jongin is now consort to the God of the Underworld himself.

 

Said God flops down next to him now, sleepy and sated, and Jongin rolls onto his side to shift a little closer to him. Jongin lifts sore arms to touch his chest, to be close, and Kyungsoo reaches out to delicately thumb the tears from his cheeks, running a fingertip along his eyelashes to catch the remaining moisture there too.

 

“You should bathe,” Kyungsoo tells him, voice quiet and a little hoarse. There’s so much warmth and affection swirling around in his eyes that Jongin nearly drowns.

 

“Later,” he whines petulantly, snuggling up to Kyungsoo’s chest, laying his forehead in the dip between his pectorals. A moment later, fingers card lovingly through his hair, brushing his sweaty fringe out of his face.

 

“You have to go, you know that right?” Kyungsoo says, his voice edging into sadness. “What I said earlier still stands. Baekhyun is waiting for you.”

 

“He can wait a little longer,” Jongin murmurs, yawning sleepily. His limbs feel heavy, and he doesn’t know if he could move even if he tried. “I want to spend this time with you.”

 

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, his tone a little more serious now. Fingers brush under his jaw, lifting his face to look up at him now. “You’re bound here now.”

 

“I know –” Jongin starts to say, but Kyungsoo cuts him off with a kiss. It starts slow, but ends deep, and Jongin feels the lazy, sensual presses right down in his toes.

 

“So there’ll be plenty of time for us to do this kind of thing,” Kyungsoo continues, looking deep into Jongin’s eyes when they pull apart. “When you come back.”

 

Jongin’s smile slips a little at the finality in the tone.

 

“I know,” he breathes. “I know.”

 

Kyungsoo helps him up, supports his first shaky steps, and ties his robes again for him. He feels filthy, dressing himself over a sticky, soiled body like this. But Jongin has to take a bath before he leaves, and he can’t walk through the palace naked.

 

Kyungsoo leads him to the door, but does not join him. It’s probably for the best – with this newly discovered passion between them, they likely won’t be able to keep their hands off each other for more than five minutes. Especially alone together, and naked, like they would be in the bath.

 

But still, Jongin lingers.

 

“I love you,” Kyungsoo tells him, taking his hand. Jongin smiles gently, and doesn’t say anything.

 

He isn’t quite ready to return those words. But it’s fine, they have all the time in the world for him to fall in love. He’ll get there eventually.

 

Just like he’ll come back, eventually, too. Jongin doesn’t know for how long they’ll be parting, this time, but the one thing he _does_ know, is that he’ll be coming back. One day. He has to.

 

Something deep and aching twists within him.

 

“Goodbye Kyungsoo,” he says, and Kyungsoo closes his eyes and kisses his hand, long and sweet.

 

Then he sets off out of the door, and does not look back.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After months and months spent in the underworld, the sun on Jongin’s skin as Baekhyun takes him back to Olympus feels more decadent than any ambrosia he has ever eaten. The fresh air that fills his lungs feels like it should be forbidden, and yet it is so, _so_ delicious.

 

He relishes in the brightness of everything. Olympus is teaming with life, with greenery and plants, and birds of all species and colours. Jongin looks all around himself in wonderment. He can’t say he hasn’t missed this.

 

Ahead of them, his father’s palace sparkles in white and gold. Jongin takes a deep breath as they walk up the steps, and steels himself when Baekhyun pushes open the front doors for him to enter.

 

Inside, he only gets one moment to take in an assembly of all the Gods and Goddesses he has ever met (and some he hasn’t) gathered together for his arrival home. In the next, a flurry of movement and golden hair rushes up to him, and envelops him in the tightest hug he has ever experienced.

 

“My baby!” Junmyeon cries, tears streaming down her face as she draws back to press their foreheads together. “My son!”

 

Jongin smiles wide, and shuts his eyes. Tears of his own are threatening to spill down his cheeks.

 

“I’m back, mother,” he whispers, just to her. “I’m home.”

 

He’s missed her more than anything. More than the sunlight and fresh air. More than his friends and flowers. More than _anything_ in the entire world _._ The reunion feels dreamlike, too good to be true.

 

She’s babbling now, in her tearful delight. Jongin can hardly follow the words, nodding and smiling along, clasping her hands tight between them.

 

He does catch the end of one sentence, however, and it draws him up short.

 

“– and I was so worried about you down there, all alone. I’m so glad you never have to go back to that _awful, awful_ place, Jongin. You have no idea.”

 

“Mother,” he says, trying to get her attention as she rushes on. “Mother!”

 

He pats her cheek softly to rouse her, and she stops so suddenly at the action, her words leaving them in abrupt silence. She widens her eyes, and looks up at him expectantly.

 

But it’s not just her he has to tell.

 

Jongin drops her hands and turns away from her, looking out at the sea of faces watching them – some happy, some concerned, some completely blank. He recognises Chanyeol, and Jongdae, and Minseok of the Seas. The Oceanids are there too, babbling quietly in excitement when he looks over to them, the sound of quiet, rushing water filling the room.

 

And then he turns to his father.

 

Yifan sits upon his throne, looking as impassive as ever. Jongin doesn’t care for him, and never has, but this is something he needs to know.

 

“Let it be known in Olympus,” he speaks loudly, so that the whole room can hear. “That while I have returned from the underworld, I am bound to return there.”

 

A murmur takes off across the floor, spreading and growing amongst the people. His mother, behind him, gasps, shocked.

 

He turns back to her. She shakes her head, afraid.

 

“I have partaken of the food of the underworld,” he says simply. “I have to go back.”

 

In front of him, his mother drops to her knees in anguish. The murmuring from the crowd has turned to shouting.

 

Behind him, Yifan quirks his brow in annoyance.

 

Yet another thing he has to deal with.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Deep down in the depths of the underworld, Kyungsoo pines.

 

It’s been months since a decision was made at Olympus, and the verdict delivered to him via Baekhyun. According to the rules of the underworld, Jongin should stay with him, but according to Junmyeon that would spell the end of the human race. An ultimatum had to be found, and it was.

 

Every year, Jongin is to spend six months in the human world with his mother, and then the next six down in the underworld, with him.

 

Junmyeon hadn’t been happy with the decision at all. She had promised fiercely that she would not let the crops grow for any time that Jongin is away from her. But there’s not much else the Gods can do, and as long as the people learn how to stockpile their food when they have it, they will live.

 

And so came the seasons. Spring had been the height of it. Jongin had been bright and playful, only just allowed back to his friends, and the newly blooming flowers. He’d had things to do, plants to help grow, and others to play with. Kyungsoo had watched him, back then, frolicking in the sunshine. Had watched his skin turn golden again, and his hair go back to blonde.

 

Kyungsoo had watched him then. Kyungsoo had watched Jongin slowly forget about him, and then it had been too painful.

 

Summer is another story. Jongin glows so bright with the heat that Kyungsoo can’t bear to look at him. Or maybe there are other reasons Kyungsoo can’t bring himself to watch his lover anymore. Like the way he smiles, so brightly, at everyone who isn’t him.

 

He feels petty and jealous. He feels lonely and neglected.

 

He stops watching then. He can’t bear it. Six months is a long time to torture himself with things he can’t have, and Kyungsoo is just so _weak_ when it comes to Jongin.

 

So he shuts that part of himself off. He resolutely refuses to check the human world, buries himself in his work, and forgets.

 

Or tries to.

 

It almost works.

 

It almost works so well that he’s forgotten to look for the first signs of Autumn. He doesn’t pay attention when the Summer heat gradually subsides to be a little colder, and by the time the first leaves tinge themselves with yellow, Kyungsoo doesn’t remember why he’s supposed to care.

 

But a law is a law. Whether Kyungsoo remembers or not, Jongin will return.

 

“Kyungsoo,” Sehun calls, snapping him out of his thoughts, as he sits pensively in his throne room, one morning. The days are so boring now. How did he entertain himself before?

 

“Yes Sehun?”

 

“There’s… someone here to see you.” A small, secretive little smile graces Sehun’s lips.

 

“To see… me?” Kyungsoo asks, in confusion.

 

But right about then is when Jongin can’t seem to bear the suspense anymore, and comes sweeping in through the terrace doors, bursting into the palace like a wave of happiness and sunshine and light, and everything Kyungsoo’s never been allowed to have, down in the underworld..

 

“Jongin?” he stands, eyes widening in painful surprise to see his lover here, in front of him, with him, right now.

 

Jongin has stopped at the bottom of the steps leading up to his throne, looking up at him with the most adoring of gazes.

 

“It’s Autumn already, you fool. Did you forget?”

 

They both tumble forward at the same time – Kyungsoo down, and Jongin up – to meet somewhere in the middle. When they kiss, it’s messy and frantic, and Kyungsoo would be self-conscious about the tears rolling down his own cheeks, if Jongin weren’t crying too.

 

“You came back,” Kyungsoo gasps, pressing their foreheads together, and clasping both of Jongin’s hands between them. He shakes his head, happy, delirious. “You came back to me.”

 

Jongin laughs shakily through his tears, but the sound is the most beautiful, musical thing Kyungsoo has every heard.

 

“Always,” he whispers. “Always.”

 

 


End file.
